5 Tips for Succeeding in Google AdWords

Learn how to set up a new Google AdWords account for success

In my 4 years of working with Google AdWords, I’ve had plenty of time to make mistakes and learn from them - over, and over and over again. Through mistakes, thorough research and training, I’ve been able to gain a basic understanding of how to set up a new Google AdWords account for success.

1. Customized Landing Pages

Creating custom landing pages can be a lot of work! It’s easy to skip over this step - decide to get back to it later, or settle with what you currently have for a landing page. But that, my friend, is a huge no-no!

If you’re going in it at all, go in it to win it. Go big, or go home. Now is not the time to play around with your money.

Figure out a good design for your landing pages that will help you get one specific message across with a clear call to action for your visitors.

If you pay Google $1.75 for someone to click on an ad, and then they show up to a page that isn’t specific, isn’t clear, and doesn’t tell them what to do next, they have a high probability of leaving immediately.

Not only did you waste a click and the cost of that click, you’ve now got other issues to worry about. Google’s going to see that the people clicking on this ad don’t like what they see - so it will cost even more to show up high in the search engine. Your keyword will get a low quality score which will also increase cost. And like a domino effect, it will keep causing trouble for your new AdWords account.

Take the time and get your landing page set up right before taking your AdWords campaign live.

2. Small & Specific Adgroups

Many clients come to us with an adwords account that they attempted to build themselves and I see immediately why they never got any leads - they have 1 campaign, with 1 adgroup, and 50 keywords that don’t relate at all.

When you set your AdWords campaigns up, you want to be as specific as possible for each service you are trying to sell. Each campaign should be it’s own service that you offer, and the adgroups within should be grouped by specific keywords & keyword phrases that people will be searching for.

Example: Client is trying to promote products for baseball season.

What not to do:

• Campaign 1, Adgroup 1, Keywords: hats for sale, baseball hats, cleats for sale, baseball gloves, sports shop, aiken sports.

What to do:

• Campaign 1 - Baseball Campaign
• 3 Adgroups:
  • Baseball Hats:  +baseball +hats, +baseball hats for sale, +ball +cap,
  • Baseball Gloves:  +baseball +gloves, +softball +gloves, +ball +glove,
  • Baseball Cleats: +baseball +cleats, +cleats for sale, +softball +cleats, +buy +cleats

The keywords within each adgroup should all relate to each other. The ad that shows up for each of these searches will then be related, and the custom landing page will also be related. This is how to set up a new Google AdWords account for success - you’ll see lower cost-per-click, higher click-thru and conversion rates, high quality scores & more benefits.

3. Targeted Keywords (Say NO to Broad!)

Once you have these well-structured AdWords campaigns set up, it’s time to fill it with keywords. A successful adgroup is going to have 5 - 25 keywords that relate. In order to have a successful AdWords account, it’s so important that you keep your keywords very targeted.

There are 4 ways to target your keywords - or 4 “match types” as Google calls them.

• Broad Match - enter a keyword or phrase and your ad will show up for that term or anything Google thinks is relatable:  baseball hats Columbia
• Broad match modifier - add a plus sign to tell Google which important keywords must be included in the search query: +baseball +hats Columbia
• Phrase Match - use quotation marks to tell Google that an entire phrase must be included in the search query: “baseball hats Columbia”
• Exact Match - use brackets to tell Google that the search query must match this keyword or phrase exactly: [baseball hats Columbia]

The different match types allow you to target your keyword for a broader or narrower range of actual searches.

Broad is the most broad in terms of what searches trigger your ad. For example, if you add "baseball hats Columbia" as a broad match keyword, you are telling AdWords to show your ad for searches containing that term or a similar one. The problem - similar phrases aren’t always that similar. You’re trying to sell baseball hats in Columbia - but writing your keywords this way will have you showing up for search terms like cowboy hats, fedora hats, rain hats, safari hats, etc. You are guaranteed to waste money.

Broad Match Modifier is the best choice for starting out. In order to have a broad match modifier keyword, you simply add a plus sign in front of each keyword you want it applied to in the keyword phrase.

An example is +baseball +Hats.  Or +baseball +hats near me.

This plus sign tells Google that you want your ad to appear only if that exact keyword (singular or plural) is in the search query. This gives you more flexibility than phrase and exact match types, but also lets you narrow down your audience much more than broad match.

4. Negative Keywords

Negative keywords prevent your ad from being showing when a user searches a certain keyword or phrase. It’s important that you go ahead and add some negative keywords when you start your first campaign so you are immediately headed for success.

Example: When you add "free" as a negative keyword to your campaign or ad group, you tell AdWords not to show your ad for any search containing the term "free." On the Display Network, your ad is less likely to appear on a site when your negative keywords match the site's content.

If you use broad match or broad match modifier, you should add words you know you don’t want to show up for such as cheap, coupon, free, pornography, and so on. Going off of our previous example with hats, you would want to add cowboy, fedora, rain, safari, etc.

You then want to constantly watch and see what people are searching for when they click on your ads, and continue to add negative keywords to ensure you are spending your money on keywords that will lead to sales.

5. Conversion tracking

If you don’t set up conversion tracking from the start, you won’t know how many clicks actually became leads. You are then running a campaign focused only on getting clicks.

This is going to waste a lot of money.

Tracking conversions will help you figure out which keywords, ads and landing pages perform the best. You will see which ones are bringing people in who are actually interested in taking the next step, after clicking on your website.

There will be a lot of people who click on your website, but tracking the ones who call or submit a contact form after clicking on your website will help you  run a successful AdWords Campaign and increase sales.

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