Monday, August 25, 2008

Writing the Most Effective Google AdWords Ads

By Theo McLanahan


There are some insider secrets to using Google Adwords that can make a huge difference in your ROI - they may even make the difference between being profitable and losing money.

The first thing you need to be doing is targeting the proper audience. Try to make your ads as exclusive as you can, right down to the language they're written in, to appeal to the type of customer you're looking for.

Another important factor is to make sure your keywords are refined as much as possible. One technique for this is to place square brackets around your keywords - [keyword]. This is called an exact match keyword and will ensure your ad only gets displayed when someone types in that exact keyword in Google.

If they search for something that includes your keyword in the phrase but has additional words, your ad won't be displayed. This can help reduce your costs for visitors that are not well targeted.

Always run multiple ads at the same time for any given keyword group. Google will alternate between them so you can see which one gets the best clickthrough rate. One you have a winner, replace the loser with another variation, always trying to improve on the current winner.

Once you get your clickthrough working well, you also need to ensure you're tracking your ROI (Return On Investment) for each ad. Adwords doesn't do this for you, but you can integrate it with Google Analytics, which will.

Analytics will let you track conversions from specific ad groups so you can see which groups are profitable, not just getting clicked.

When you write your ads, you should include your keywords in the title and description. When a keyword is in the ad itself, Google highlights it in the results, which can make your ad stand out from the pack.

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