Google Adwords Made Easy
By Salihu Ibrahim
Posted Thursday, September 16, 2004
Getting started.
The aim of any Google adwords campaign is to turn a profit. Whether tangible or intangible. Maybe you are looking to make more sales by generating very targeted traffic or have more visitors sign up for your ezine, download a free or trial software, free ebook etc. Ultimately the aim is to have a good return on your investment (ROI)
.
However, the immediate goals of your campaign is to
1. Have a high click through Rate (CTR)
2. and a low Cost per click (CPC).
These two parameters, together, put your ad in a good position (typical 1st to 6th position) on the search results page.
Google adwords is unlike other pay per click search engines where the highest bidder gets the highest position. Google wants to present the most relevant ads, matched with the keywords that generated these ads to searchers. So that a high click through rate means your ad is relevant to searchers even if the CPC is low.
If Your ad is presented (impressions) 1000 times and the CTR is less than 0.5% of the number of impressions, your ad gets slowed by Google and could eventually be disabled. If you ad is slowed you can edit it and run it again.
So here is your dilemma. To generate a decent CTR you need a good position. To get a good position you need a popular (competitive) keyword. Using a popular keyword means you will have to bid high. Yet you want a low CPC in the range of $0.05 to 0.10.
What to do? Look for not so popular keywords. Obscure keywords that few people use to search in your industry. Very few advertisers will be using them too. Identify many of these keywords. Make sure they are targetted. Add all the obscure keywords together. This will give you a good list that will generate a good amount of impressions, good CTR and at a low CPC.
Looking for good and obscure keywords
Use the keyword tools to check for currently used keywords, related keywords and alternative keywords. You can use the tools at:
1. Overture tool at (http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/)
2. Google tool at (http://adwords.google.com/select/main?and=keywordsandbox)
3. wordtracker at (http://www.wordtracker.com)
4. Espotting at (http://www.espotting.com/popups/keywordgenbox.asp)
How to discover your obscure keywords
There are various ways to discover obscure keywords related to your industry or search term.
1. Use keywords with very low search count at Overture keyword suggestion tool. These are not competitive Keywords. They are not often searched on. But remember you are trying to add all obscure keywords to make a great keyword list.
2. Add variations to the keywords generated above. For example market to markets, marketing, marketers marketable.
3. Check your website log and fish out keywords searchers are already using to locate your site or product. You will be surprised at what people type into search engines to locate your site.
4. Use the Thesaurus and dictionary to check for alternative words synonyms. You can use more than one type of dictionary. When checking for meaning of words, you will often see in the description, alternative words with same meaning as the word you are checking for.
5. Ask friends, family members, what words they will use when searching for your product or the theme for your Website.
NOTE: Always keep in mind that, what the keyword tools will give you is a tiny fraction of what millions of people use on the Web. The keyword tools at overture won’t give you those keyword count because very few numbers of people use them at a time or period.
Features Provided by Google to Achieve your desired CTR
(1) Exact Match
(2) Phrase Match
(3) Broad Match
(4) Negative Keywords
Exact Match: To designate your keywords for exact match, put them in brackets. For example, (niche markets). So your ad will only show if “niche markets”, without the quotes, is searched for. It won’t show up for market niche. This is a highly targeted way of getting visitors to your site. Unfortunately, you will get very few impressions using the exact match feature. Though your CTR may be high.
How to use it
Use exact match feature when you are bidding on competitive keywords. Because of the low number of impressions exact match generates, not many advertisers maybe using it. So experiment and at the same time try to lower your cost per click (CPC).
Phrase Match: To designate your keywords for phase match include them in quotes. For example “niche markets”. Your ad will appear when these words are searched for at the search engine. Also when words are added to those. Example, “building niche markets” or “niche markets discovery”. The main keywords will always appear in the other which you set it. That is, niche markets and not market niche. Your ads will not appear for “niche successful markets”. The phrase match generates many impressions. Though not as targeted as the exact match, it more targeted than the broad match option.
How to use it.
This is the feature you will most likely be using often . Build a good keyword list. In the niche market example, you will not appear for niche marketers or niche marketing so include these and others in your keyword list. One important feature you should use with your phrase match option is the negative keyword. This is explained below. Negative keywords help to make your keywords more targetted by allowing Google not to add them to your main keywords.When you designate a keyword as negative, Google will not add it when you are using phrase or broad match. If not, Negative keywords could make your keywords to have different meaning than what you intended. For example, a word like free. If you are not offering anything for free and free is added to your main keywords, then clicks to your site might be wasted and costing you money. So designating the word free as a negative keyword will make Google not to add it to your keywords
Broad Match: Broad match is the default setting for Google adwords and your ad is automatically shown for expanded match, plurals and other variations. So be sure to remember to change it when starting a campaign. Choosing the broad match feature allows Google to add other words to your main keywords. This makes this feature to be the least targeted. It produces the most impressions and probably the most CTR. But due to its non-targeted nature, could produce very low conversions or ROI. Using the “niche markets” example in broad match, you could have your ads displayed for searches on “locating niche markets”, “niche markets ideas, “succeeding in marketing niches” etc. your keywords will come out in many variations in plurals.
How to use it.
To have an appreciable success in using broad match, you need:
(1) To build three and four keyword phrases. This limits the number of words Google adds to your keywords phrases.
(2) Build a good and extensive negative keyword list.
(3) Use the Google keywords suggestion tool. It will show you words that will appear with your keywords. That is expanded matches.
Negative Keywords: This feature is used to eliminate words that could be added to your main keywords. For example, the word free. Just add a minus in front of the word ( –free ) to make it negative, this word will not be added to your keywords. Example, if your keywords are “niche ideas”. Your ads will not show for “free niche ideas”. It is extremely important to use this feature so as to eliminate unwanted keywords, unwanted meanings and untargeted keyword phrases. This is also important when you are dealing with children’s products. You will need to eliminate porn words so that your money is not wasted. Imagine a user searching for adult content and clicking to your site. Use of negative keywords is an additional way of making your keywords more targeted when you are using the phrase match or broad match options. One tool you can use to search out negative keywords is at (http://ww.ebooksdeal.com/egi-bin/keywordtool/keywordtool.cgi).
How to build a good campaign structure:
A good campaign structure saves you loads of time and contributes immensely to a successful adwords campaign.
Campaign 1 Campaign 2 Campaign 3
Adgroup 1 Adgroup 2 Adgroup 3
Ads 1 Ads 2 Ads 3 Ads 4
Keywords keywords keywords keywords.
Google adwords gives you the flexibility to test your ads as much as you want. You can delete ads that are not giving you the right CPC,CTR or ROI. Create more ads to take the place of the deleted ads. Test as many ads as you like until you attain your desired CTR or CPC. But you can only do this if your campaign is properly structured and set out well from the start. You need to know what ads and in what adgroup(s), associated with what keywords, are giving you the required results. And those that are not. So that you can quickly delete the unwanted ads. On this basis you can set out your campaign structure as indicated above. For example, explaining campaign 1.
Start testing your large keyword list by distributing them among the different adgroups. Group keywords that are:
1. closely related in one adgroup.
2. group keywords that are highly competitive in another adgroup.
3. group keywords that are not competitive.
4. group keywords that are in plural
5. group keywords with misspelled words etc.
If you have different kinds of products with different keywords, create one adgroup for each product. This allows you to create ads specific to keywords for each product . So, you don’t have general ads which apply to all your keywords.
The general idea is to group your keywords as you like them so that you can easily identify which ones are producing the required results.
For each adgroup you can now create different ads. For easy management , 2 or 3 ads per adgroup is okay. I use two ads per adgroup. You can use the same set of keywords you have allocated per adgroup for ads 1, 2, 3. the only difference in the ads will be the title and description. At the ads level you can change any ad that is performing below expectation. delete and write new ads. If it is the keywords that are performing badly, delete that adgroup and create another. However, do not get into the habit of creating and deleting adgoups. If you test and track your results properly at the ads level you will not need to replace any adgroup after deleting it. Your result would have shown you that the keywords for that adgroup are not profitable and need not be used again. You then research new obscure keywords that you can use.
Note: If you use the same keywords for more than one adgroup only one adgroup will be shown at any point in time. Also Google optimizes ads on an adgroup basis not on keywords basis. Better performing ads gets shown more often. For example,
Keyword : “high heel shoes”
Ad #1 15% CTR
AD #2 5% CTR
When high heel shoes is searched on ad #1 shows more often than ad #2.
Keyword: “low heel shoes”
Ad #1 10% CTR
Ad #2 20% CTR
When low heel shoes is searched on ad #2 shows more often than ad #1.
However, you can choose to remove the optimization feature so that you can test all your ads equally.
Achieving your goals
(1) Producing your best impressions. You need to present your ads to the right searcher ( visitor ). This is important so your ads are not displayed to the wrong searchers, thereby generating wasteful clicks. For best impressions-
(i) good keyword research
(ii) good negative keywords
(iii) use phrase match
(2) Producing your best CTR. The click through Rate (CTR) is the number of times your ad is clicked on compared to the number of times it is viewed, in percentage. So if out of 100 impressions (views) your ad gets clicked once, your CTR is 1%. To produce your best CTR put your main keywords in the title and description of your ads. Example, keyword phrase is “niche markets”.
Title: Discover niche markets
Description: Download software for discovering
Niche markets fast.
URL: (http://www.yourdomain.com/niche.html)
A user searching for niche markets will be instantly drawn to your title because it same as what he is looking for. The title catches the eyes and the searcher is drawn in to read the description. The description also talks about niche markets. Before you know it…click… and one very targeted visitor has gone to your website. This type of keywords – title – description gets the most targeted clicks in a adword campaign.
(3) Achieving your best return on investment (ROI). To produce your best ROI you must apply the keyword – title – description approach described above. This gets the searcher to your landing page. The landing page is the page your visitor will first see after clicking on your ad. This page must be specific to the product you are selling or the action you want the searcher to take. Do not send the searcher to your home page unless the action you want the searcher to take is there. So it is keyword – title – description – landing page. You don’t want the searcher looking all over your website for what has been described in your ad. Also do not frustrate the searcher by a slow loading page.
(4) Achieving your best cost per click (CPC). The ultimate aim of every advertiser is to have minimum CPC while maintaining a good ad position. Typically position 1 to 6. Even though writing good and enticing ads is the key to a good CTR, having a good keyword list is the key to many targeted impressions. A combination of these two will produce your best CPC.
Tips and Tricks
(1) Keyword variation. Here are some easy ways to generate variations in your keywords.
(i) Make keywords plural. Example, niche market to niche markets.
(ii) Adding the ing to verb words. Example, market to marketing.
(iii) Adding er. Example, market to marketer.
(iv) Adding or. Example, invest to investor.
(v) Adding ment. Example, invest to investment
(vi) Adding -. Example ebusiness to e-business.
(vii) Combining and separating words . Example, Web site to Website.
(viii) Common misspellings . Example, successful to successfull
(ix) Interchange words . Example, niche marketing to marketing niche.
(x) Replace words . Example, marketing niche to marketing segment.
(xi) Use American and English spellings. Example, vigor and vigour.
Use these anywhere it is possible in your keywords or keyword phrase.
(2) Tweaking your ad copy: Are your ads attracting enough clicks? . Here are some ways you can use to generate ideas for greater CTR ads.
(i) Study the ads of your competitors. Study the way title and descriptions are written.
(ii) look at the regular result pages when you type in your keywords at Google search engine. Study the description and the title of the sites that come up.
(iii) Use very specific words like download, free, trial etc if it is relevant to your campaign.
(iv) Include the price of your product if you know that it has a comparative advantage.
(v) Emphasize benefits to users in your ads.
(vi) Write out your ad in the best possible way. Do not, at first, limit yourself to the number of words allowed. When you are satisfied then try to reduce it to number of words allowed per line.
(3) Tracking: Tracking the results of your campaign is about the most important aspect of your adwords campaign after building a great keyword list. Tracking helps to indicate where your campaign is heading, good or bad. You need to carefully follow your impressions, CPC, position, etc. All these are present in the report panel of the adwords interface.
GOOGLE ADWORDS SCENERIOS
There are different situations you will find yourself as you try to achieve and maintain a profitable adwords campaign. Sometimes, you will find that adjusting certain parameters might improve or get worsen your the campaign. The trick is to test. Don’t be afraid to test . It is only by testing that you can really get to understand how adwords works and then master it.
Let’s look at some situations we might find ourselves in while running our adwords campaign.
1. LOW IMPRESIONS AND LOW CTR.
(a) This can happen when you are just starting your adwords campaign. You have probably not read enough about the Google adwords program before drawing up your campaign.
(b) Also it can be that you have not done your keyword research very well . You might be using keywords that people hardly search for.
(c) It could also be that your daily budget is so low that Google would not want to exceed your budget. So your ad is presented very few times.
SOLUTION ;
i. Set your daily budget high. Do not worry. Google will not exhaust your daily budget. If your daily budget is set to $100 for example. You will be spending about $10 daily. Or if you set it at $20 you could be spending $5 to $7 daily. Setting the daily budget high enough gives you plenty of data to analyze your campaign. Your impressions will be high. CTR will be high too if your ad is well written.
ii. Brainstorm and research good keywords. Use the available keywords research tools to know which keywords searchers use to find your site .
iii. Write good ads that follow the keyword-title-description-landing page formula. This will increase your CTR and conversion.
2. HIGH IMPRESSION BUT LOW CTR
This is the situation new advertisers to Google adwords find themselves. Here you will be trying to convert most of your impressions to clicks. You can do this in two ways.
I. Increase your cost per click (CPC). Increasing your CPC places your ad in a high position which in turn generates high impressions. This will increase the cost of your campaign considerably. If your conversion is not good enough you might be running a loosing campaign.
II. Write better ads using the keyword-title-description-landing page formula. Searchers will be more likely to follow through from search results to clicking on your ad. This increases your CTR.
NOTE: If you have a keyword that is generating high impressions but low CTR , it is advisable to delete it. But if the keyword is important and related to your services or product you can create an adgroup for that keyword and also create ads for it. Then test and see which ad is producing the desired CTR. Further more, deleting poor performing keywords is like deleting your past poor performance. So that, the new adgroup will not be hindered.
Also, it not good to leave keywords that are not generating impressions. Delete them. Though Google will not penalize you for these keywords until the impressions have reached 1000, low impressions generating keywords will hinder keywords that are performing well. This is the case, because the Google adwords system budgets for all keywords and if your daily budget is low, your keywords, including the performing ones, will be shown less often. The system will not exceed your daily budget.
Bottom line; use fewer keywords for a low daily budget.
3. HIGH IMPRESSION,HIGH CTR GENERATED BY HIGH CPC.
Every advertiser wants high CTR with low CPC. Typically in the range of $0.05 to $0.10 per click. But in industries where there are heavy players with costly keywords, high CPC could be the order of the day. How will a small business compete in a situation like that ?
1. Again the answer is in keyword research. Extensive, in depth research will provide you with the obscure keywords that few people have discovered.
2. Another way to compete is to know how much a visitor is worth to you. You have to have a good conversion rate at your website.
If for example,
A click is $1 and you are converting at your site at 5% conversion rate. This means, for every $100 spent 5 visitors buy your product. For you to break even (that is, no profit no loss) your product must have a margin (profit) of $100/5 clicks=$20. So if each product has a profit of $20 on top of the cost price, then for each $100 spent you will recoup $100. Anything less than $20 margin will mean a loss for you. And anything higher than $20 means a gain in your campaign.
However, due to fluctuations in ad position, CTR, conversion rate, competitive bidding by other advertisers, it is advisable to ensure that your visitors worth or click worth is such that the profit on each product is high enough to allow for these fluctuations. For the example, $35 to $40 margin would be good . I must stress that this depends on your product, industry, competitors etc. The example is to provide a general idea of what to do.
HIGH IMPRESSION AND HIGH CTR WITH LOW CPC.
This is the dream of every advertiser. Achieving this takes a lot of hard work and testing. Google adwords is unique in that your ads go online immediately. This allows you to test your ads as much as you want. When you are not satisfied, write new ads. You can also set CPC for campaign as well as for individual keywords. One trick you can use to achieve this, is to initially set your daily budget high, CPC high, and write good ads. This will position your ad well, 1st to 6th position. Once you have achieved a good CTR (4% to 7%) gradually lower your CPC while retaining a high daily budget. Always remember that a high impression and CTR will get you a high position even if your CPC is low compared to your competitors’
HIGH IMPRESSION,HIGH CTR,LOW CPC BUT LOW CONVERSION.
In a situation like this, low conversion is due to several factors
1. Bad or wrong landing page. Your landing page must be directly related to your ad. Do not allow the visitor to search for the information which brought him to your site. Use the keyword-title-description-landing page formula. On how to create a landing page that converts very well go to (http://www.wilsonweb.com/isalihu2001)
2. Keywords that produce high impressions, high CTR but are not exactly related to the landing page. There are some keywords that are closely related but have different meanings. For example, the keyword phrase “web pages”. Your title and description could be for a software that builds web pages. But the searcher is looking for how to write web pages that sell. This results in many clicks to your site with very few conversion. So you should make your title and description as explicit and direct as possible. This leaves the searcher in no doubt as to what is on the landing page.
GOOD AD POSITION.
A good ad position is from 1st to 6th position. A good ad position is obtained by having a high impressions and high ctr.
AVERAGE AD POSITION
This is typically between 7th to 10th position. A higher position is achieved by either increasing your bid or writing better ads for higher CTR
summary
1. Keyword research . Very important. The bedrock of your adwords campaign.
2. Good campaign structure as set out above.
3. Write good title, description with relevant keywords in them.
4. Follow the keywords-title-description-landing page formula
5. And test, test and test. Track your results efficiently.
About the Author
This free report is by Salihu Ibrahim.
The author has worked online since 2000. The report is based on the author’s years of intensive Google adwords campaign experience. For more incisive articles on home base business ideas, check out his website at (http://www.ebizstartups.com) OR You can subscribe to his bimonthly newsletter BIZWISE by sending a blank email to bizwise@ebizstartups.com with subscribe as the subject.
