Paying for better rankings results on Google is sure fire way to increase web traffic to your site. Throughout the years, Internetrix has successfully managed client Google AdWord campaigns and learned a thing or two along the way.

Creating a successful Google AdWords campaign isn’t exactly brain surgery, but it isn’t exactly easy either. It’s takes a bit of work. So if you want more people visiting your site and perusing your products and/or services, then listen up!

First off, begin thinking like your customer. “If I was a potential customer using an Internet search engine, what terms would I use to search for my products and services?” A couple hours of brainstorming will likely bring you some good answers.

Next, generate a budget for you AdWords campaign. To help you, establish your competition on the words you chose. Do this by searching your list of words to see what paid advertisements are listed across the top banner and at the right hand side of the page. If there are lots of advertisers in those places expect to pay more than a less competitive set of keywords.

Now it’s time to get down to writing the ads. Remember there’s a limit of about 35 characters per line. The desired format is this:
Catchphrase
Line 1
Line 2
Website link

Keep in mind it’s hard to know how much you’ll need to spend upfront. Advertising costs are incurred when someone clicks through to your website. You control spending by setting a daily budget. Once that daily limit is consumed, ad won’t show again until the next day.

Like previously mentioned it’s not brain surgery, but it takes some manipulation to get an overall effective campaign using keywords that don’t cost too much and the right lines wording in the advertising.

The best advice: do your research. Before embarking on this type of marketing campaign, sit on Google for a while and type in words and phrases that you would expect your potential client base to use. Monitor the amount of sponsored links displayed. You’ll eventually get a sense of how much competition is out there and hence the costs involved to get your own sponsored links in position.

Be sure to try at different times of the day as some advertisers daily budgets might have already been consumed. Another sneaky trick is revisiting Google and continually clicking on an ad until it disappears. This will give you a sense of your competitor’s budget.

Source: http://www.internetrix.net

1. Having too many keywords in a single Ad Group.

Since an Ad Group is Google’s lowest level of segmentation, it should ideally be used to express a single idea or theme. Generally, I find that the more specific, the better. Typically, I find that any Ad Group with more than 50 keywords is probably too broad. The exception would be Ad Groups with a large number of misspellings.

More specific Ad Groups do mean more management — but it will also mean a much better ROI.

2. Using “Broad Match” without negative keywords.

The default setting for keywords in Google is Broad Match. That means that any search phrase that contains your keyword can trigger your ads, whether they are relevant or not. I recall working on a campaign for a printing company, and finding that its ads describing silk-screen t-shirt printing were showing up for the very popular search phrase — wet t-shirt. Setting “wet” as a negative phrase was a simple fix.

3. Not understanding the difference between “Search Match” and “Content Match” (and setting single campaigns for both).

Google does a nice job of allowing a site to determine where its ads will show. But many AdWords advertisers use these settings indiscriminately. I would suggest that campaigns be set to either “Search Match” or “Content Match” (but not both). The simple reason is the ads that will appeal to individuals actively searching on a phrase will be quite different from the types of ads that will appeal for browsers who see "Content Match" ads.

4. Bidding for Position No.1.

I often see new AdWords advertisers over paying for clicks because they are pursuing the No. 1 position. I think they assume that being in position No. 1 is always best‚, but I think when you consider the additional cost for position No.1, often times positions 2-5 are a much better value.

5. Not testing different ads.

I’m a huge fan of split testing — both on websites and for ads within Google AdWords. New advertisers should create two or three ads for each Ad Group, and after about a month, take a look which ad has the best cost-per-conversion. Ad split testing should be a continual process. One tip I like to use is to pause my old ads rather than delete them, that way I can see what ads I’ve already tested.

6. Not tracking conversions.

This might be the cardinal sin of Google AdWords. Conversion tracking might take a little bit of effort to set up, but it is a critical step in identifying which keywords create conversions, and which ones just create clicks.

Source: http://www.practicalecommerce.com