You’ve finally taken the plunge to improve your online marketing efforts and set-up your very first Pay per Click campaign with Google AdWords.
You marvel at how easy it was to create your first Ad Group and appreciated the way Google suggested some keywords you might like to add. You worked through your reservations over some of the keywords as you figured that those clever people at Google knew far more about your business than you. Finally, you couldn’t quite believe how easy Google made it to add your credit card details…
Roll forward two months and whilst you appreciate that the level of web site enquiries have improved, you just wish that some of them were connected to your business! You start to question your own ability to sell online and figure that Pay per Click is just too complicated and best left to others. It doesn’t have to be that way. Google AdWords can work for you.
If you are ‘going solo’ into the world of PPC, this checklist of 11 tips for optimising your AdWords account could help you improve your AdWords Campaign as well as save a lot of time, money and anguish:
1. Carry Out Your Own Keyword Research
- Don’t just take Google’s suggestions and blindly add to your account. Prepare your list in advance and keep it relevant to what you’re selling.
2. Set Your PPC Budget
- Start small and test. You can always increase once you’ve become an ‘AdWords Ninja’!
3. Migrate from the ‘Starter’ to ‘Standard’ AdWords Campaign
- Take control of your AdWords account and gain access to the complete management tools and reports.
4. Turn off the Content Network
- Edit in your campaign settings. There’s nothing wrong in using the Content Network but do not mix with the search campaign.
5. Use Keyword Match Types
- You need to know the difference between Broad, Phrase and Exact match. If you don’t understand the differences and don’t use as appropriate, it’s bound to end in tears!
6. Split Test Ad Copy
- No, I’m not talking about anything overly complicated at this stage but start with two adverts for each of your Ad Groups and see which performs best in terms of CTR.
7. Understand CTR
- Click through Rate, or CTR, is the percentage of clicks your advert appears against the number of searches (impressions) for a term. Better ad copy = better CTR.
8. Improve Your Quality Score
- Relevancy wins and your Quality Score improves! Don’t just send all of your traffic to your home page. Take the searcher to the most relevant section of your site for that search term and get rewarded for relevancy.
9. Rotate Your Ads
- Edit in your campaign settings. At least until you know which of your adverts is performing best.
10. Get Negative
- Use negative keywords to prevent unnecessary displays of your advert. They will dramatically improve your account performance and save you lots of cash!
11. Run AdWords Reports
- There are many reports that Google make available but the Search Query report should be one that you get very familiar with. You’ll be surprised at some of the terms you see, particularly if using Broad. Use this report to spot rogue searches, add further negatives and improve your AdWords campaign still further.
I hope these tips prove useful and help you improve your Google AdWords campaign to a stage where you are getting a positive return on your investment. If you need professional help, take a look at our Google AdWords Management page.
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