Archive for February, 2010

You’re intelligent enough to know that creating demand in a market place for a product where none currently exists is extremely difficult.  And your AdWords market place is no different to any other.

Don’t spend hours creating huge keyword lists, writing creative and imaginative ads and linking them to perfectly matched landing pages without testing your market place first. 

A pint of sweat will save a gallon of blood.  

George S Patton Jr  

Wise words from one of Americas foremost combat generals of World War II. 

The harsh reality is that if there are very few people who are actively searching online for your product or service, then AdWords probably is not for you. 

And it’s better to learn this at the start of your advertising campaign before you’ve even opened an AdWords account rather than after days, even months of hard work, not to mention heaps of money in wasted advertising. 

Here’s 5 steps you should take to evaluate your AdWords market before starting your next campaign:) 

1. Use a keyword selection tool to find about 10 very popular keywords for your offering. Perform a search on Google using each keyword and count the number of sponsored ads at the top and down the side of the page. If there are no ads or only two or three for each keyword, then the chances are that your niche is not going to be very profitable.
2. Using the same keywords, note the websites and ads that are shown most often. These are your main online competitors. Visit each website and review their offering. Take notes on the quality of their offering, the price, and how easy it is to make a purchase. Also look at their trading policies like returns and delivery charges. Can you compete? Do you have a competitive advantage that you can use?
3. As you begin to research your keyword list, don’t spend weeks or months finding every single phrase. Keep everything simple, start with a small list of keywords that are often searched on and see how you get on.
4. When creating a keyword list ignore any keyword phrases that have less than a few hundred impressions. They’re not worth the effort.
5. If your small keyword list starts to work, then gradually expand it to include more keywords. If it fails, then try to understand why.

In recent years, I’ve looked at a number of campaigns for clients where the products great, the ads are well written, landing pages are good, and the keywords are a good match, but the demand has not been there.

It’s hard to tell someone who’s been spent hours and hours banging their heads against the wall to try and make their AdWords campaign work that they never stood a chance.

Don’t let this happen to you. Make sure you check the AdWords Market for your product or service, and launch your advertising slowly, a little bit at a time. If the response is good, then move forward. But if nobody bites, don’t be afraid to get out!

Dear AdWords Adviser!

Every week we answer one of the many questions you send us. If you would like the answer to your question then send it to:)

www.dearadwordsadviser.com

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This week we would like to thank Eileen for the question:)

How can I improve my Quality Score?

If you’re like everyone else who uses AdWords, you’ll encounter problems with Google’s Quality Score feature at some time or another. Improving Quality Score sometimes seems like the “Holy Grail” of AdWords – the ultimate goal that can never be reached.

Increasing your Quality Score by just a single point for one keyword can make a huge difference to the amount you pay in bids on that keyword. It therefore comes as no surprise when people tell us about the frustration they feel  when they spend hours working on their account for little or no return.

The fact of the matter is that this is really too big a subject to cover properly in a single post, but here are some general pointers that maybe useful.

• Keep the keywords in your ad groups closely related to each other with no more than 5 or 6 keywords in each group.
• Remove any keywords from your account that don’t attract lots of clicks. Obviously you should keep any low volume keywords that regularly convert. But, get rid of all those keywords you’re keeping running just in case they become the next big search term.
• Link your ads closely to the main keyword in each ad group. Include the keyword in the heading, text and display url (if possible).
• Design landing pages for your ads that are also closely linked to your main keywords, but don’t over do it. Put your most popular keyword in the heading, three or four times in the text (top, middle and end ideally), in the url to the page and if possible, within a url from the page also.
• Don’t force your landing pages by including in it every keyword in your ad group. Google is intelligent enough to know that words like mobile phone & mobile cell phone are related. Choose one variant and keep to it.
• Write landing pages that your visitors will find useful and informative. If selling products, don’t copy content from the manufacturers website. Use original content that will add to the debate and inform your readers.
• Most important tip of all: Be patient! The biggest mistake that most advertisers make is that they expect their changes to have an instant effect. The fact is that improvements to your campaign can take days, weeks and sometimes even months to fully show up in higher Quality Scores.

Recommended Posts from the AdWords Adviser:

What Is AdWords Quality Score And Why Is It Important?

How To Create AdWords Landing Pages That Google Will Love

Recommended Posts From Around The Web:

Google AdWords Quality Score

Understanding Google AdWords Quality Score and it’s influence on your CPC’s and Ad Position is explained in this short video. Google’s Chief Economist, Hal Varian, explains the AdWords Ad Auction as well as how your max CPC bid and …

Google AdWords Quality Score « PPC Rockstars – Online Radio …

Talking Google AdWords Quality Score with BG Theory founder Brad Geddes who distinguishes the different kinds of quality score and offers best practices for obtaining great Quality Score and repairing problem scores.

3 AdWords PPC Marketing Header Tag Tips to Improve Your Quality Score

Google uses a number of measures to determine how much a pay per click advertiser pays for one click. One of these ways is called a Quality Score. One way to improve your Quality Score – and pay less per click – is by properly using …

32 Useful AdWords Tips for Intermediate to Experienced Users

If working with a larger budget, and you plan on constantly improving your ads, bid high to be #1 long enough to allow quality score to continually decrease your cpc. 24.) Enable content bids and bid separately for the content network. …

• Improving Your Adwords Quality Score Factors (davidnaylor.co.uk)
• Understanding Google Adwords Quality Score (smtusa.com)

Related Posts:

• The Inside Secrets Of AdWords Bid Management That Will Save You Money

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Adrian Key is a profesional AdWords consultant and editor of the AdWords Adviser, a blog dedicated to making AdWords more profitable for you. Subscribe to this blog, get your free ebook, and be informed by email everytime we answer a readers question.

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Adrian Key’s Monthly Newsletter for the AdWords Adviser:
Making AdWords more profitable for you.February 2010

In This Issue: Landing pages, split testing, AdWords optimization center,
click to call, AdWords account make over, display url rule change
———————————————————————————————————————————This month’s newsletter is packed full of advice about how to:

• make landing pages that Google will love,
• split testing to improve your ads performance,
• click to call for the Mobile Internet,

and a whole lot more …

Enjoy!

Adrian Key
Editor of AdWords Adviser, making AdWords more profitable for you.

Post Of The Month

How To Create AdWords Landing Pages That Google Will Love

Creating landing pages that AdWords will love does not have to be difficult.

http://www.adwords-adviser.co.uk/how-to-create-adwords-landing-pages-that-google-will-love-2

Take Advantage Of AdWords Split Testing And Improve Your Ads Performance

AdWords split testing is a powerful tool for testing two ads to see which performs best. It is the easiest and most effective way of improving your ads performance.

http://www.adwords-adviser.co.uk/take-advantage-of-adwords-split-testing-and-improve-your-ads-performance

Google’s New AdWords Optimization Center Inspires Advertisers

Google launches the new AdWords Optimization Center, but opinion is mixed.

http://www.adwords-adviser.co.uk/googles-new-adwords-optimization-center-inspires-advertisers

Google’s Click-to-Call Takes The Mobile Internet To The Next Level

Google announces the new Click-to-Call feature that can now be included along side your mobile Internet ads. But, what is this new feature and is it any good?

http://www.adwords-adviser.co.uk/googles-new-adwords-optimization-center-inspires-advertisers

The 4 Secrets You Need To Give Your AdWords Account A Quick Make Over

Every advertising campaign has lean times. Use your next lean period to improve your accounts performance during the good times with these 4 AdWords make over tips.

http://www.adwords-adviser.co.uk/the-4-secrets-you-need-to-give-your-adwords-account-a-quick-make-over

Google Tightens The Screw On Display URLs

Important news for all AdWords users that send visitors to a public domain blog, you are going to have to change your ads.

http://www.adwords-adviser.co.uk/google-tightens-the-screw-on-display-urls