Google AdWords is an SEO tool that is still too often overlooked. That’s almost suicidal for a small business because AdWords can drive traffic to your website and generate new leads and sales.
Read on for some tips on using AdWords:
- Know how your ads get shown – important factors include your daily budget, maximum cost per click per keyword, popularity of your search phrase and Google’s Quality Score.
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Know where to send users who click on your ad – in other words, don’t send all of them to your home page. This means creating a “landing page”.
Which, by the way, is part of Google’s Quality Score rating. If you aren’t familiar with Quality Score, you need to learn now.
- Keep it refined – broad or generic keywords just don’t work as well. Search queries now are longer, rather than a single word or a pair.
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Organize keywords into themed ad groups – this makes them more relevant to the audience, which in turn increases your click-through rate.
This improves your Quality Score (there it is again!) and results in lower click costs.
- Use Google’s free conversion tracking – this tells you how well your clicks convert into action. Not only will it help you streamline your campaign, it’s also free!
- Specify a particular Match Type setting for each keyword – this controls how Google triggers your ad.
- Don’t ignore negative keywords – for example, if your product is something for the home, you want to avoid anyone searching for “House, M.D.”
- Variety is the spice of life – don’t assume that one ad will attract the right audience. Test different versions of ad copy for a week, locate the winner and change or delete the losing entries.
- Separate the wheat from the chaff – get rid of any under-performing keywords. Otherwise, they bring down your Quality Score.
A well-thought Google AdWords campaign is worth the time and effort. Use these optimization techniques to make the most of your ad budget.
Images By: mikebaird and cambodia4kidsorg
