Long List of Less Than Targeted Keywords
When
you first set out to create your AdWords campaign it is
of utmost importance that you do not go "keyword crazy",
what this means is that you must not create long lists
of irrelevant and generic keywords. For example if you
were an automotive dealership then it would not be in
your best interest to target the keyword "truck". The
reason being is that the cost per click (CPC) for such a
generic keyword would be incredibly high when compared
to a more descriptive relevant keyword such as "T-Z783
Extended Cab". An example of an irrelevant keyword which
would not produce conversions if you strictly conducted
automotive sales would be "tail light covers" the phrase
may bring visitors to your website but if they do not
find what they are looking for when they get there they
will be gone just as quickly as they arrived.
Not Identifying Unique Aspects of Your
Product or Service
Before
implementing your AdWords campaign you must first
understand exactly what it is that makes you stand out
from your competition. By identifying your unique
products or services you will have a lot more clarity on
how to rise above your competitors and zone in on the
keywords or phrases that are unique to your business. I
would recommend that you perform an analysis of your
competition, have a look and see what they are doing and
which phrases they are using. After conducting a
competition analysis and after understanding what makes
your products or services unique you will be able to
come up with a strategy that will topple your
competitors.
Lack of Keywords in Your Ad Text
When
creating your descriptive ad copy it is imperative that
you find a means to inject your keywords in to your
title and description while maintaining the delicate
balance of clarity and relevance. Your ad copy should be
tailored in such a way that when read by a visitor they
know exactly what they are getting in to when they click
on your ad, which brings me to my next point.
Directing Users Solely to Your Home Page
Taking
the time to decide on which destination URL should be
designated to which ad instead of pointing all ads in a
campaign to your homepage is an oversight that I come
across far too often. When you finish with compiling
your list of relevant keywords that describe unique
products or services of your business, why on earth
would you then send everyone to your homepage and let
them navigate through your site in hopes of finding what
it is that they are looking for. Instead why not send
them straight to the page that contains exactly what was
described to them within your ad copy. As an example if
you were an automotive dealership and your ad contains
the keyword "T-Z783 Extended Cab" instead of sending
them to www.auto-motive-dealership.com send them to
www.auto-motive-dealership.com/T-Z783_Extended_Cab.html.
Creation of Single Ad Groups
By
categorizing ads that are targeting related keywords
into a common ad-group will create a much higher level
of control that you have over your entire campaign.
Let's say that you were a sporting goods store, start by
grouping all ads targeted towards hockey skates into a
single Ad Group. You would then create another ad-group
which would be targeting hockey sticks and another
containing hockey gloves and so on. By organizing your
ad-group structure in this manner gives you the ability
to create in-depth reports on the performance of each
ad-group.
Utilizing Single Campaigns
Once
you have your Ad Groups sorted out into easy to identify
categories you may then move on to the next step of
creating relevant campaigns. From the example above you
have created Ad Groups containing separate products of
hockey skates, sticks, gloves etc. Now it is time to
create a container for all of the Ad Groups into one
campaign entitled "hockey equipment". You would then
repeat the process creating Ad Groups for tennis, one
group for shoes one for racquets etc and then once again
you drop them all into a single campaign entitle "tennis
equipment". Having highly organized campaigns is the key
to determine which ads are creating the optimal
conversions.
Using Broad Match Only
When
you do not take advantage of the phrase matching options
that are available to you chances are you are missing
out on potential customers and creating a higher CPC.
Broad matches are usually less targeted than exact and
phrase matching. Broad matching is the default option
your ads will appear for expanded matches such as
plurals or relevant keyword variations. When utilizing
phrase match your ad will appear for search terms in the
order that you specify and sometimes for other terms.
Exact matching is by far the most targeted option to
use. You will appear for the exact keyword specified.
Negative keyword is also a fantastic option to utilize
in order to specify which keywords you do not want to
appear for.
Broad
match- Default option: Blue widget
Phrase
match- Surround the keyword in quotes: "blue widget"
Exact
match- Surround the keyword in square brackets: [blue
widget]
Negative match- Place a negative character before the
keyword: -blue widget
Failure To Optimize Ad Serving For Your
Ads
When
you take advantage of AdWords Ad Serving service
basically what you will be doing is showing your most
popular ads more often. The AdWords platform will give
weight to ads with the highest click through rates (CTRs)
and display them more often then keywords with lower (CTRs)
within the same ad-group.
Not Tracking Results
In
order to have any idea on your AdWords campaign
performance you must be able to see the keywords that
work as well as those that do not. Google AdWords
supplies a vast array of very useful tracking tools.
Google has also built in to the user interface Google
Analytics which is a marvellous web analytics tool that
provides you with in-depth reporting on all aspects of
your campaign performance. I can not stress enough the
importance of creating goals for your AdWords campaign
to measure your success by.
Entering The Content Network Without
Modifying Bids
Within
the AdWords platform you have recently been given the
ability to set different bids for the content network
compared to that of the search network. If you do not
set different bids on the content network for certain
keywords, you will be paying more per click than you
should be. After lowering the prices on certain keywords
you will notice that the amount of click throughs that
you will be attaining will remain the same as they were
at the higher bid.
Conclusion
The
purpose for this article was to create awareness for
common mistakes and to eliminate frustrations that may
emerge when managing Google AdWords campaigns. The
points mentioned above are compiled from management
mistakes that I have stumbled upon time and time again
in hopes to assist you in creating a marketing campaign
that will generate dramatic increases to the profits of
your business.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tyler Huston is the founder and CEO of
SearchStrategist.com, a search marketing firm that
provides professional PPC Management, expert search
engine optimization, SEO press release writing and blog
optimization services. Tyler takes pride in ranking
clients from all over the world at the top of the search
engines. He can be reached at tyler@searchstrategist.com.
