Chris James Blog

Steve Avery wrote:


With permission from the Google AdWords Guide: Novice to Expert to Superhuman – www.AdwordsCampaign.net

2. TARGETING

    There’s no point in advertising anything unless the ad reaches a person who might be interested in it. That sounds obvious, but the number of advertisers who waste money on “catch-all” ads with a “shotgun” approach, hoping for the best, is astonishingly high. If you follow their example, you’ll lose a lot of money fast with Google AdWords. The secret of success with Google AdWords, as with any advertising medium, is accurate targeting. With Google AdWords, though, you can home in on your target market with pin-point accuracy.

    If you sell a machine with a specific model number, that model number should be your main keyword. If you sell it only in a certain town or county, that town or county should be a keyword in the Ad Group. If it relates to a particular season or festival, that should be a keyword.

    Keywords can be combined with each other or with incidental words, such as prepositions like “in”, “for”, “with”, to form 2-word, 3-word or 4-plus-word phrases in various ways and different word orders. Ideally, every conceivable phrase that a surfer might type as a search term would be desirable to have in an Ad Group as an exact match keyword phrase. Then your cost per click for each of those keyword phrases would be minimal. If you’re creating your Google AdWords campaign manually, such a task would be totally impractical, of course, if not impossible. For such jobs specialist software that applies “brute force” algorithms is a sound investment. You get what you pay for, and even the high-end software pays for itself, usually many times over.

    Negative keywords have a great impact on a targeted AdWords campaign. If you sell software, for example, and don’t just give it away, you do not want your ad to appear when someone types the phrase “free software”. That might trigger an impression of your advertisement unnecessarily, thus affecting your keyword’s and your ad’s click-through rates adversely. Worse still would be if that person were to click on your ad. Yes, it’d help your CTR but you’d pay good money for a non-revenue-earning click. Specify “free” as a negative keyword, to prevent your ad from being displayed. To micro-target your market, your negative keyword list could be surprisingly large.

    The same principle applies to the ad text: You don’t want freebie-seekers clicking on your ad unless you’re giving away something for nothing on your landing page. That costs you money. Don’t be afraid to target your potential customers who are prepared to pay for your product or service by making it clear in the ad text that it’s for sale and not free. Stating its price in the ad is the easiest and most succinct way to get that message across.

    As well as geographic targeting, you can also make use of demographic tageting to a certain extent. Demographic targeting with Google AdWords, however, requires some judgment on your part. Use the Google AdWords “placement targeting” function (see ‘Tactics > Placement Ads’) to pick specific web sites that, in your opinion, would be visited by the kind of people you want to see your advertisement. Combine those placements with specific keywords and bids to attain the desired position for your ad on context-relevant pages on those web sites.

Here’s a summary of what happens, depending on the Google AdWords settings you choose:

Select ‘Search’ with keywords in the Ad Group: Your ads can appear on user searches related to your keywords. Select ‘Search’ with no keywords in the Ad Group: Ads in this Ad Group won’t appear on search. (Keywords are needed to be matched to user searches.) Select ‘Relevant pages across the entire network’ with keywords in the Ad Group: Your ads can appear on Content Network pages matching your keywords. Select ‘Relevant pages across the entire network’ with no keywords in the Ad Group: Ads in this Ad Group won’t appear on the Content Network. (Keywords are needed for your ads to be matched contextually on the Content Network, but if you have also selected Placement targeting in this Ad Group, your ads can appear on any individual placements you selected.) Select ‘Relevant pages only on the placements I target’ with keywords in the Ad Group: Ads can appear only on the placements you choose, and only if the content of those placements matches your keywords. If your chosen placements don’t match your keywords, your ad won’t show. Select ‘Relevant pages only on the placements I target’ with no keywords in the Ad Group: Ads can appear on any of the placements you choose, regardless of relevance.

Melissa Ritter wrote:


 

Beating Adwords is a fully comprehensive Internet Marketing Guide that focuses on making money online using Google Adwords. If you have been reluctant to try Adwords, this is the product that will change your perspective. So if you are a newbie to Adwords or even an experienced advertiser, I would definitely recommend you take a look at Beating Adwords. Beating Adwords contains powerful strategies that can help you earn a lot of cash without much investment of time and money. Once again, PPC is a strategy that needs to be maneuvered the right way. Beating Adwords is definitely a must have reference guide for all Internet Marketers who are just getting started, or who haven’t made any money online. It is very important to use the correct techniques when getting started, and Beating Adwords will teach you these.

Beating Adwords releases the Slow Roller Technique, and this alone is worth the cost of the book. Stop listening to the guru’s tell you to drop hundreds into PPC, and start using this technique.

Beating Adwords is the only investment you will need to learn how to make money online. This program is the most complete up-to-date guide on how to earn money online. If you are serious about making money online and you haven’t got your own copy of this great program you are simply missing out. Kyle and Carson have literally invested $100,000’s refining the techniques and strategies that have been included in this book and the information that you will receive is leading edge. If you have heard of Kyle and Carson before, then you should know that their products are not scam’s. They are the creators of The Wealthy Affiliate, which is one of the most sought after affiliate programs on the web.

Beating Adwords is a deal at ten times the price, and a must-have for anyone serious about making money with Pay Per Click Advertising.

Adaminreview wrote:


Anyone interested in internet marketing or simply making money online would know about adwords created by Google and about affiliate programs. But not many know about the optimization techniques that could help you beat the competition and make more money online. Beating Adwords tells you exactly how to beat adwords in its own game. The authors Kyle and Carson are known as the ‘wealthy affiliates’ and they know exactly how Google adwords work and have distilled and refined their years of experience and shared the secrets with everyone who wants to get make money online.

Beating Adwords is targeted both at the novice, the intermediate and the advanced internet marketer. It is definitely an asset to anyone who needs a trusted guide to navigate the labyrinth of information out there and make some money. The authors have carefully included online marketing tactics and strategies that not many are willing to reveal. This results in a landslide of profit if you followed the guide correctly.

What I like best about Beating Adwords is the practical approach shown in the book. While many other internet marketing handbooks make it look as simple as waving a magic wand and you start making $1000 within minutes, in reality it is not so simple to set up the process. Lots of dedication, commitment and the willingness to stick to the basics long term is needed before you can start making money. It is possible to sit back and count the money even in your sleep, but you have to put in the effort first. If you do that, like I have then you could be set for life.

Beating Adwords works on the principle of understanding how Google adwords work, this understanding the authors say will help you save time, money and resources and still compete against the big guys out there. The authors constantly update their book with the latest changes made by Google which will give you an edge over the competition. They show you how to set an Adwords account the proper way so that you could start making money at the right time. But first you should know when to put out your marketing campaign the way that Google wants you to.

Click through rates or simply CTR is the average no. of clicks that your adwords get. Many people have a CTR as low as 1% for their adgroups. Beating Adwords coaches you how you could consistently improve your CTR to an amazing 20 % or even 30%! Just by understanding the secrets behind Google adwords, you could make the right moves at the right time and rake in the profits.

If you have always thought that you need a killer website and several thousand dollars worth of products, Beating Adwords turns your thought process upside down. , you only have to follow the instructions laid out in a step by step fashion and watch your adwords work for you exactly the same way as you want it to be! Beating Adwords cover all the internet marketing strategies like adwords optimization, finding profitable products, finding keywords, creating landing pages, how to outperform your competition, how to pay less than your competition, how to write ads and many more. Beating Adwords does not confuse you with fancy jargon or fuzzy algorithms, it just points you to the right direction in your internet marketing campaign and goes all the way still you start making money.

Beating Adwords lifts the veil of secrecy around Google adwords and is a powerful book of useful techniques that really work. So if you are just starting out or even if you are an experienced campaigner, I would certainly recommend the book because it will appeal as a step-by-step instructions to the beginner but also contains many advanced tips and secrets for the seasoned campaigner. Believe me you’ll recover the money invested in the book the moment you start following the guide, so go ahead and get ready to Beat Adwords in their own game!

Caiden Felix wrote:


What Is Adwords Miracle All About?

Have you heard of Adwords Miracle? From the off-set its sales page looks nice and professional. For a change, it actually gives you a fair amount of detail, which is unusual for a sales page. Obviously though it does not offer you an unbiased review. That’s where im gonna step in.

Adwords Miracle is a guide that has been put together by the self titled ‘Miracle Man’ (can’t seem to find a real name anywhere within the product). Within the guide he shows you in simple steps how he himself has made, and continues to make a small fortune every day with Google Adwords, and how you too, by following the same steps can do the same.

Does Adwords Miracle Work?

Good question! I should mention at this point that i am myself no stranger to using Adwords, therefore im reviewing Adwords Miracle as a man of Adwords experience. So, did i learn anything new? In short, yes! Adwords Miracle starts off covering the basics very well. Things like keyword research and ad copy are all comprehensively covered (although he does add some nice little ’spins’ on ad copy later on). The first few pages are all standard fair, but a necessary one. The important thing here is that he does it with clarity and humour, which makes it easier to read and absorb. Especially important for Adwords newbies!

What attracted me originally to Adwords Miracle was the sales page talk of ‘Special Themes’, so lets take a look at that.

Woooooo! This is were things get REALLY interesting. I’ll kick off by mentioning his ‘Skimming Method’. Now it would be wrong of me to tell you what it is, so ill just tell you what i think of it. This could alone be sold for the asking price of the entire Adwords Miracle program. If Your looking for a method to make small amounts, but easy money then this may be it. I actually but this method into practice 2 weeks ago, and after the first week of ’settling in’ it started to produce a nice $20-$30 per day. Not bad for 2 hours initial work eh?

The rest of the ‘Special Themes’ focuses on advanced methods of ad copy and keyword research most of which was original enough for me (remember im an experienced Adwords user) to find useful and refreshing.

How Does Adwords Miracle Compare With Other Programs?

Well, obviously there are hundreds or more Adwords programs being sold on the internet. What makes Adwords Miracle so unique, in my opinion, are the advanced and ’special themes’. This section really is absolute gold. That’s not to say that the rest of the book isn’t great also. Its just that the ’special themes’ section presents such unusual and different techniques (techniques that actually work as i have personally proven to myself) that it alone makes me pleased as punch that i purchased Adwords Miracle. You just don’t see these kinds of methods in other books.

So Bottom Line, Do You Recommend Adwords Miracle?

I know i keep using the word refreshing, but i don’t care… I’m going to use it again… Adwords Miracle is the most refreshing Adwords guides that i have ever come across and that alone means im happy to recommend it.

Adwords Miracle is a comprehensive but very well presented program with some very nice twists.

So bottom line…Yes…I highly recommend Adwords Miracle.

Cheers

Caiden Felix

Frederic Madore wrote:


I recently purchased adword miracle by Chris Mcneeny, after all the messages I received about it I had to read it for myself and decide whether it’s good or not. For those of you who don’t know what is adword miracle here is a short resume.

A word about the author, Chris Mcneeny is the creator of highly successful products like Affiliate Project X and Day job Killer, he is a very skilful and successful internet marketer; his main field of expertise is google adword.

Adword miracle is a basic course to help you master google adword. Having read all the other ebook Chris has written I had to read this one too to see if it was as good as the other ones. First I have to say that I have read many ebook on the subject, very good ones and very bad ones. But Adword Miracle is one of the easiest to understand, i actually learn quite a lot about adword. I understood what mistakes I was doing and was able to turn bad google campaigns into successful one just with the knowledge I gain from this book. Here is a sample of what you will learn with this eBook:

Basic of adword: First Adword Miracle explains, for the newbie, how does google adword works, how to setup an account, the full break down all the elements of your account and what you should focus on before setting up any campaign. Adword Miracle also show you how to setup the setting in your adword account preventing you from costly mistakes.

Writing Ads: I have read many book on the subject but I must be real honest here, the techniques I have learn in Adword miracle are brilliant and yet so simple. After reading it I was wondering why in the hell I never thought about doing this it was right in my face all along. With this technique alone you can easily transform a bad click through rate into a good one.

Campaign Management: Adword Miracle will also provide you with quality information about bidding strategy for you campaigns, how to setup a daily budget so you don’t go broke on a bad campaign, and how to deal with inactive keywords, That was a big one for me.

Special Themes Section: This special section of Adword Miracle is loaded with some of Chris personnal techniques for promoting products. Techniques like:

- the skimming method

- Affiliate promotion with adword

- Promoting product via a review Page

- Thruth about keywords

- Explanation about profitable keywords and the ones that are a total waste

- And much much more

You also get Bonuses like “How to build a list with adword”, how to choose the right product to promote on clickbank and more. Make no mistake each bonus is written by Chris and contains very useful knowledge.

Overall I thought that Adword Miracle was a very good book, I have learnt a great deal by reading it. Although I must add that it is not for everyone, if you are looking for a get rich quick idea, this is not for you. Adword Miracle requires some work for the techniques to work, but if you are interested in succeeding with adword then this book is a very good starting point.

Ron Isaiah wrote:


10 Inside Secrets to Google Adwords – Part 1

Let’s face it… Google Adwords is not the only source of traffic on the internet, nor is it free. However, if you cannot convert the traffic you get from the pay-per-click traffic on Google Adwords, your site surely won’t convert the casual visitor who may or may not be ready to buy what your are selling.

When spending money for pay-per-click (PPC) traffic, whether it is from Google Adwords, Overture, or a 2nd-tier PPC network, the key is to track your traffic to see if it converts into sales. There are many software products and online services that can track your traffic. For a recommendation, visit: http://www.superiormarketingpartners.com/adtracking.html

Many people that have tried Google Adwords have lost their shirt, so to speak. Some keywords on Google Adwords are cheap (keyword phrases start at a nickel per click). Some keyword phrases on Google Adwords can cost tens of dollars per click. If you end up paying high per-click prices on Google Adwords and don’t sell a high-ticket item on your site, even the most enviable sales conversion rate won’t turn a profit.

There are several tricks to advertising on Google Adwords that unless you know them, it becomes almost impossible to turn a profit on your advertising.

Secret #1 – Only bid on exact match keywords

Google Adwords has a few different ‘keyword matching options’ available. When a keyword is placed in brackets like this: [keyword], it is called an ‘exact match.’ This means that only when someone enters that EXACT keyword phrase will your ad appear. It might occur to you that by limiting your keyword(s) to only exact match, you are eliminating all those people that may be searching for the phrase “cheap widgets” or even “widget” singular, since only the keyword “widgets” plural is an exact match. Believe me, this is exactly what you want. Sure, it will take extra time to create an adgroup within the Google Adwords system for each keyword phrase you want to bid on, but you will know with 100% certainty which keyword(s) are converting into sales this way. If you do NOT use the exact match option in Google Adwords, then there is absolutely no way to know which keyword(s) are resulting in sales on your site.

Secret #2 – Bid to be in position #2 or 3

When someone searches on Google for your keyword, the first page of search results are going to reach the most people. What you want to do is position your ad in one of the top 3 spots. You don’t want position #1 necessarily, because that position costs the most and doesn’t give you much more benefit than being in position 2 or 3. You pay less for these spots than position 1 and gain most of the benefit.

By being in one of these top spots, your ad gets a higher ‘click-thru rate’ (CTR). This is good is because the Google Adwords system actually rewards you for having an ad with a high CTR by charging you less per click! Google Adwords exists to make money for Google. If they have two companies advertising for the same keyword, and your ad pulls a 10% CTR and your competitor’s ad for the same keyword pulls a 5% CTR, then Google Adwords makes more money from your ad. Google Adwords rewards you for this higher CTR by charging you less per click than your competitor!

Secret #3 – Negatively qualify your ads

Admittedly, the problem with having an ad that has a great CTR is that it gets a lot of clicks! Unless your traffic converts into sales, it’s hard to turn a profit on your Google Adwords ads. The key is to put words in the ad that DISCOURAGE people from clicking on the ad unless they ‘pre-qualified’ to convert to a sale. For example, if you have site that sells widgets that cost $10.00 each, then put something in one of the lines of text in your ad like ‘Widgets cost only $10.00.’ The only catch is that if your ad isn’t getting a very good CTR in the first place, then a negative qualifier is only going to reduce your CTR.

Your next step? There are many more techniques to learn that will increase the profitability of Google Adwords campaigns. The above tricks will start you off towards making Google Adwords work for you. Check back for Part 2 in this series. You can get a complete course that covers every tip and trick you will ever need by visiting: http://www.superiormarketingpartners.com/adwords.html

Steve Avery wrote:


With permission from the Google AdWords Guide: Novice to Expert to Superhuman – http://www.AdwordsCampaign.net

1. RELEVANCE

    A primary aim is to reduce your cost per click (CPC). Google will favour you with a low cost per click if you master the concept of relevance. If you don’t, your pay-per-click rate will be high, your profits will suffer, your campaigns will probably fail, and your competitors will beat you.

    Google is the undisputed leader (by far) among search engines because it provides searchers with results more relevant than those of any other. When a surfer types in a search term, Google’s complex algorithm returns pages that match closely the words searched for.

    Google applies the same principle to AdWords advertisements. Ads that are more relevant than others are given preferential treatment. Less relevant ads are allowed to compete, but they are penalized by a high cost per click.

    Google AdWords employs two distinct modes of measurement of relevance: A. Robot; B. Human.

    A. An automated program compares the search term not only to your advertisement text, but also to the keywords in its Ad Group, to the URL of the specified landing page and even to the textual content of the landing page itself, to determine how relevant these components are to each other. If all four are tightly integrated with the search term, you’ll pay a very low cost per click — perhaps only 5 cents — and still command a high position on Google’s first page. Any component that does not match the search term closely causes the CPC to rise, perhaps even by a factor of a hundred!

    B. Every time Google displays your ad, it records the fact. This is known as an “impression”. If a surfer clicks on the ad, Google records that also, and divides the number of clicks by the number of impressions. The result gives your ad a “click-through” rate (CTR). A similar calculation is made for your keywords that appear in the search term, to give them their own click-through rate. Google AdWords assumes that, if a human clicks on your ad, it is probably relevant to the search term typed in.

    As your CTR rises, so do your keywords’ Quality Scores, and, as more and more keywords’ Quality Scores rise, so does the Quality Score of the entire Ad Group. The higher the Quality Score is, the lower will be the cost per click. Conversely, the fewer clicks your ad gets whenever it’s displayed, the lower your Quality Score and the higher your cost per click will be.

How to Increase Relevance of the 4 Components (keywords, ad text, URL, landing page)

If you create a campaign manually (rather than by “brute force” means), use only one keyword phrase per Ad Group, e.g., “adwords guide”, and specify exact match initially. Once the Ad Group’s Quality Score has increased, expand it to phrase match also, to capture phrases such as “online adwords guide” and “adwords guide for beginners”. (To specify broad match, to capture search terms like “adwords online guide” and “guide to adwords”, is impractical unless you use “brute force” software.)

Use the precise keyword phrase in the heading of the Ad Variation, and sprinkle the keywords in the two description lines.

Use the keyword phrase, hyphenated or unhyphenated, in the display URL, e.g., “/adwords-guide” or “/AdWordsGuide”. Not only does Google’s robot consider it relevant, but humans do, too, and are more likely to click on the ad.

Use the keyword phrase, hyphenated or unhyphenated, in the destination URL of the landing page, e.g., “/adwords-guide.html” or “/AdWordsGuide.htm”.

If possible, register domain names, both hyphenated and unhyphenated, containing the keyword phrase. Use the hyphenated one in the display and destination URLs, and redirect the unhyphenated one to the hyphenated one for other promotion purposes.

Use the keywords in the landing page content as follows:

– The precise keyword phrase in the

Steve Avery wrote:


3. Other Google AdWords Strategies

     Google AdWords Ad Positioning

    Although the profit margin on the product or service offered is a large factor, tests have proved that the first ad position on the first page is, generally, not the most profitable. Yes, it gets the most clicks, but it’s often a spontaneous action by the surfer before studying the ad. Sometimes the surfer is merely browsing the subject and is not ready to buy (commonly known as “tyre-kickers”).

    Tests show that the further down the page an ad is, or, occasionally, even on the second page, the greater is its conversion rate. The surfer has taken the time to read the ad carefully because he is ready to buy. Furthermore, the clicks are fewer; so, your overall pay-per-click bill is less than for a higher-positioned ad. The downside is that the click-through rate (CTR) of the lower-positioned ads is lower, which affects your Quality Score adversely and raises your cost per click.

    A happy medium is to aim for positions 4 to 6 on Google’s first page. (You can use the “Show Estimated Ad Position” and “Estimated Avg CPC” columns in the on-line Google AdWords Keyword Tool to determine the cost-per-click to bid for each of of your exact match keyword phrases, and then you can set those bids accordingly. These figures can, however, be notoriously inaccurate. Always check your keyword phrases’ positions afterwards in the ‘Avg Pos’ column on the Ad Group’s ‘Keywords’ index tab or by testing with a search on the main keyword phrases.)

    “Google Search” ads, “Content Network” ads, “Search Network”/”Search Partners” ads, “Placement” ads

    You can specify different maximum bid amounts for these various types of advertising. Because the quality of their traffic tends to be lower, bids for the Content Network (“entire network” option) and Search Network (Search Partners) (see Tactics > Search Network) should be kept lower and be more tightly controlled than those for Google Search traffic and the Content Network (“Placement ads” option). In the early stages of a new Google AdWords campaign, it is advisable to go with only Google Search traffic and switch other options off, to help you to control costs. Once you’ve discovered the keywords that produce the highest return on investment (ROI), you can enable other options for those keywords to see what results they produce.

    If you find that a Google Search traffic campaign is too competitive, don’t just abandon Google AdWords altogether; try a Content Network Placement ad (see Tactics > Placement Ads), bidding either CPC or CPM (q.v.).

    Testing and Tracking

    Ad Variations

    Despite what you may think of your copywriting prowess, you will not write the perfect ad at the first attempt. You may need ten attempts before you find the best formula. Although you may hazard a reasonable guess at the advertisement text that would attract visitors, the ONLY way to KNOW what ad text achieves the highest click-through rate (CTR) is split-test two ads simultaneously.

    Although changing just a single word can make a difference, do not split-test two ads that resemble each other that closely; Split-test two radically different ads. (Switch off Google’s option to show the better-performing ad more often than the other, as that would distort the test results.) After between 20 and 50 clicks it should become apparent which of the two ads is out-performing the other. Then replace the inferior ad with another and split-test again. Repeat this process again and again, each time reducing the textual differences between the two ads until you arrive at the one that performs best of all.

    To track the click-through rate (CTR) of your ads, go to your Google AdWords campaign web page, click on the Campaign name; click on the Ad Group name; click the ‘Ad Variations’ index tab; check the ‘CTR’ column.

    Always keep all the Ad Variations that you create, to check that you don’t repeat any inadvertently.

    Landing Pages

    Split-test your landing pages in a similar way, to discover which style, layout, text, call to action, etc. achieves the highest conversion rate. To track the conversion rates of your web pages for various keywords, go to your Google AdWords campaign web page and click on the ‘Conversion Tracking’ item on the ‘Campaign Management’ index tab.

    Always save all the landing pages that you create, to check that you don’t repeat any inadvertently.

    Keywords

    After a new campaign has been running for about a month, check the click-through rate (CTR) of all the keyword phrases in each Ad Group on its ‘Keywords’ index tab. Click the ‘CTR’ column header to sort the keyword phrases, mark the checkbox of all keyword phrases with a CTR of less than 0.5% and either ‘Pause’ or ‘Delete’ them. (If you have many keywords, it’d probably be quicker to do this in your specialist AdWords software tool and upload the keyword list to your Google AdWords campaign again.)

    0.5% is considered the benchmark of a poorly performing keyword. Such keywords cause your ad to be displayed but, for some reason, the people using the keyword in their search terms don’t connect it mentally with your ad, and don’t click on it. If several keywords have a low click-through rate (CTR), the overall click-through rate (CTR) of your whole Ad Group is reduced and its Quality Score will be affected adversely. Eventually, this Ad Group’s lower Quality Score will also affect the Quality Score of your entire Google AdWords campaign.

    This check should be performed weekly thereafter.

    If you really want to use those poorly performing keywords, remove them from the Ad Group and create a new Ad Group for them, or even a new campaign, so that they don’t affect your overall Quality Score.

    The Bottom Line

    Great importance is attached to the click-through rate (CTR), but, to put it in perspective, it is only a means to an end. A high click-through rate (CTR) does not make you a millionaire in itself; It’s revenue that counts. Your revenue is determined by the successful interaction between keywords, Ad Variation and landing page, all three working in harmony together.

    Maximum CPC Bid

    Don’t be afraid to bid higher than necessary for keywords in a new Google AdWords campaign during the first few days. This will establish your campaign with Google and, as your click-through rate (CTR) rises, your maximum CPC bid amount to achieve the same ad position will fall dramatically. Then you lower your bids and check again the next day. Repeat this process until your bids are minimized. You do this for all the keyword phrases in the Ad Group. If there are too many keywords to deal with manually, invest in specialist software to calculate the bids for you.

      CPC or CPM?

     Google ‘Content Network’ advertising (see Tactics > Content Network) gives you the option to specify your keywords’ maximum bids as cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM) (“M” is the Roman numeral for 1,000, “mille” in Latin). CPM can be useful if the Quality Score is low or the cost per click (CPC) is high. If you opt to pay for impressions rather than for clicks, Google couldn’t care less about Quality Score or click-through rate (CTR) or even relevance; You simply pay each time your ad appears. Of course, it’s still in your interest to ensure that you follow the advice about relevance already given.

    It’s your responsibility to track the performance of your CPM ads, because Google doesn’t do it for you. Obviously, you won’t want to keep paying for ads that don’t convert. Moreover, you’ll still have to bid high enough to get your ad to be displayed in the desired position within an ad unit on an AdSense publisher’s web page, or even at all, and that cost could be quite high on a good-quality, popular web site that you choose for a ‘Placement’ ad (see Tactics > Placement Ads).

     Keywords

    Unless you have a six-figure annual budget and would be happy with a mere 10% return on investment (ROI), don’t bother bidding for popular 1-word keywords, such as “mortgage”. The competition for most single-word keywords is fierce, unless the niche is very esoteric. Moreover, searches on single words are made most frequently by people who are simply not ready to spend their money; they are merely investigating the market, gathering information; in other words, they are “tyre-kickers”. 1-word keywords would probably bankrupt you very quickly.

    2-word keywords are a better bet, but they can still command a high cost per click in competitive markets, surfers who search on them may still not be ready to buy, although they’re getting there.

    Keyword phrases of three words and up are known as “long-tail” keywords. (Note that the word “keyword” in pay-per-click advertising can mean a phrase of more than one actual word, e.g., “New York”. A “keyword phrase” consists of more than one “keyword”.)

    3-word keyword phrases have the highest conversion rate, according to tests. People who type three words as a search term have usually done their investigations, know exactly what they want, and are now ready to buy.

    4-word keyword phrases fare slightly less well, perhaps because the searcher may indeed be ready to buy, but is comparing prices for a very specific item, or is doing some academic research.

    Don’t understimate the power of negative keywords! If you sell tulips, you don’t want your ad to appear when someone searches on the term “grow tulips”. Although they may not click on your ad, it’d be an unnecessary impression, and its click-through rate (CTR) would suffer. Specify “grow” as a negative keyword. (Of course, if your Ad Group contains only exact match keyword phrases, there’s no point in specifying negative keywords.)

     Landing Page

    Relevance is covered above, and is by far the most important attribute of a landing page. Here is some advice about other ways to encourage Google to enhance your Ad Group’s Quality Score.

    Google values “real” web sites more highly than mere single-page “mini-sites”. The robot checks for links to other web pages, particularly a ’site map’ page and ‘privacy policy’ and ‘contact us’ pages. A ‘terms of use’ and an ‘about us’ page may also help. Hyphenate these page names as the file names, e.g., ‘privacy-policy.html’. Place the links to these pages at the very bottom of your landing page, in the footer, using as small a font as a human would consider reasonable. You want to reduce the risk as much as possible that your visitor will click away from your landing page.

    Minimize the landing page’s load time. It is believed that Google uses this as an element in its Quality Score algorithm. Keep images and JavaScript to a minimum. They weigh the page down. (Google cannot follow JavaScript links anyway.)

     How to Attract Visitors

    What makes a person click on your ad instead of someone else’s? The answer is the same as to the question why a person clicks the ‘Buy’ button on your sales page: good copywriting. That’s a separate subject, but, suffice it to say here that your ad must be not only relevant, but also compelling. Imagine that you are the searcher, looking to buy a product or service like yours. Look at other ads offering something similar. What attracts you to one and not another? Ask your friends and colleagues what they think.

    You have only a 25-character headline and two description lines of 35 characters each. Don’t squander them on waffling about your company. The consumer couldn’t care less about you or your company. The consumer has a problem to be solved, a need to be satisfied, a desire to be fulfilled. So, mention the problem, the need, the desire. And, most important, tell the consumer that the solution, what he needs, what he wants is only a click away. Tell him to “Get Help Now” or to “Find It Here”. That’s the ‘call to action’.

Steve Weber wrote:


inner has one or both of these fantasies about AdWords:

1. Simply grab a few affiliate links, advertise them with Google AdWords, and then watch the money roll in!

2. Build a site, forget about SEO, advertise with AdWords, and success is just around the corner!

You may already know it is not that easy. Like most of us, you probably don’t care to admit how much money you have lost to Google – I know I hate to think how much I gave away to them in the past.

Fortunately, I did not give up on the Adwords system. I was determined to find out what those few, super-successful people were doing with Adwords to make it all work. I believed the system could be very profitable in the right hands even for beginners.

I was right; I too would soon be enjoying Pay-Per-Click success!

I dug in and studied what the few successful people were doing. I read everything I could on the subject. I joined several of the top guru’s membership sites and received help from them. Then I practiced with AdWords…a LOT!

After a while I began having some success here and there. Now days, the bulk of my sales are the result of my successful AdWords campaigns! Once beginners understand the system and the real science behind AdWords success, things become much easier for them.

After being asked over and over for help with Adwords, I saw a real need for something beginners could use to dramatically shorten the learning curve. Instead of only seeing a credit card bill, beginners need real help for faster success instead of the trial and error methods which only result in lost money to Google.

If you are new to AdWords, or if you tried before and gave up, please know that Adwords does not have to be a “money pit”. There really is a method which must be learned and used. A beginner simply cannot begin a campaign, throw in some keywords, and then hope for the best.

Too many beginners commit deadly mistakes in their campaigns such as leaving the content network enabled or choosing to accept Google’s suggested bid and budget. There are a dozen different deadly mistakes a beginner can make with AdWords. However, even knowing the common mistakes is not enough. A workable strategy still must be put into place which enables keywords, ads, and landing pages to all work together.

Without going into too much detail here, the first help a beginner needs is for keyword selection methods. Great keywords do not come from the free keyword tools which are so prevalent online. There is far more to choosing Adwords keywords then copying and pasting what a free online tool suggests.

Beginners to AdWords must learn the science behind choosing keywords. However, just that one step is not enough. Without knowing how to properly tie the Adwords ad and the landing page to the keyword, failure and nothing but a credit card bill will be the only result for the beginner.

AdWords is so easy to set up. A beginner can begin advertising in a matter of minutes but will usually lose money 99% of the time. The 1% of Adwords beginners who have mastered the system have learned to apply a rather complex technique for choosing and filtering keywords and matching them to correct ad copy and landing pages.

The methods used for success are not rocket science, but they are not simple either. If they were, everyone would be wealthy buying clicks!

The best part about “the system” is that, once perfected, the same system can be applied to any niche! Imagine the power in mastering that system. Google AdWords opens the doors to potentially massive traffic. All the beginner must do is seek out quality help and advice and then apply that knowledge.