In my previous post – Using Google Adwords to Sell Online – I reviewed some of the ways you can use Google Adwords to make money online.

 

While it may seem pretty elementary to advertise with Google Adwords, the right strategies have to be used for a successful campaign. Stiff competition from other Adwords advertisers has given reason for Google to set high ranking standards.

 

Factors such as Quality Score and your Click-Through-Rate are used as parameters in calculating your ad ranking. However, many new Google Adwords users have been led to believe that only the Cost per Click counts in ad rankings. In addition, Google also increases the minimum Cost per Click (CPC) during periods of heavy web traffic.

 

Inherently, minimum CPC levels are also influenced by the Quality Score of your ad. This means, you get charged a lower minimum CPC, if your ad meets gets a higher Quality Score. Finally, Quality Score and CTR also affect the number of impressions your ad is getting.

 

The Solution: Learn how to achieve high Quality Score for optimum ad rank position

 

Step 1: Pick Relevant Keywords

 

Optimized keywords on your website need to match those you pick for your ads. In addition, you’ll also need to identify keywords that your customers would use to find you.  First, write down a list of relevant keywords for your product or solution.

 

Then, run them through online keyword tools such as Google Suggest, Wordtracker and Google Adwords Keyword Suggestion Tool. You may be surprised at the word suggestions that you would never have thought of!

 

While configuring your Google Adwords advertisement, you will be asked to use either Broad, Phrase, Exact or Negative Keyword matches. Using Broad keyword or phrase matches could mean that your ad will be shown as long as one of the words in your phrase is shown.

 

This could cause your ad to appear to an unwanted audience. In this case, it would be better to use exact matches for a higher Click through Rate, and better utilization of your advertising budget. 

 

Step 2: Keyword Groups Done Right

 

You might notice that it’s possible to insert as many keywords as possible into a keyword group. Thus, most people would have the tendency to list out all the keywords they can think of under one ad.

 

The truth is, doing this will hurt your Quality Score if you don’t know what exactly you are doing. Google Adwords analyzes the keyword combinations you pick and compares that with your Ad copy. The less relevant your keywords are with your Ad copy, the lower your Quality Score will be. This also lowers the number of impressions your ad will be shown for each keyword.

 

The way around this is to scrub your list, to pick out keywords that are most closely linked to one another in a keyword group. Also, these keywords need to relate to the Ad copy as closely as possible.

 

Therefore, you may need to create different ad copies for each keyword group. Only then would you stand a better chance of getting a higher Quality Score for your ads.

 

Step 3: Ad Copy Done Right

 

At the end of it all, you’d want the right people to click on your ads. This means that your ad copy needs to attract and be relevant at the same time. How do you do this? First, you need to ensure, as much as possible, to have your keyword in your ad copy. This helps Google identify relevance.

 

Next, communicate Benefits NOT Features when writing the Ad Copy. You need to “talk” to your customers, and educate them on how they can use your product or service to their benefit. Write in simple language – you don’t need sophisticated words to get your message out loud and clear. Other tactics to get your ad noticed is to capitalize and bold your keywords.

 

Most of all , be as creative as you can with your ad copy. Remember, the competition is stiff, and only the best ads will be effective in attracting attention.

 

Step 4: Landing Pages and Quality Score

 

The page that your Ad leads to, or the landing page, also plays an important part in determining your Quality Score. Essentially, the content on your landing page needs to be relevant to your keyword and your ad. Try to ensure that your keywords are populated within the content of your landing page.

 

Apart from keyword density, the number of incoming and outgoing links on the landing page also has to be balanced. Too many incoming links to your landing page will make Google think that you are just being selfish with your links, thus giving you a low quality score.

 

Step 5: Bidding strategically

 

Ad ranks are determined not only by the cost-per-click for each ad, but also the click through rates. Thus, your ad copy must be really good to encourage a high volume of clicks. This also means that placing high per-click costs does not guarantee you a high ad ranking.

 

Instead, tracking ad performance based on profit per click, cost per click and conversion rates with the tools Google provides, will help you determine your optimum per click cost. With this, you’ll know your limit when you set your maximum cost per click value.

 

Step 6: Split Testing – It’s necessary

 

There is nothing more important in your quest to beat Google Adwords, than to split test your ads. With split testing, you’ll gain a better idea on the effectiveness of each element of your Google ad.

 

In essence, split testing is a continuous process as you refine and change variables within your ad. You could write different ad versions, change your minimum bid for a different ad ranking or use different keyword groups to achieve different results.

 

Detailed split testing steps can be found in this book - Adwords Winners Playbook by Mindvalley.  I’ve even written a review about this in one of my earlier posts – A Review on Mindvalley’s Adwords System Exposed

 

In conclusion, using Google Adwords for successful advertising results requires the right strategy, planning, hard work and continuous improvement and testing. What’s more, with Google consistently implementing new constraints to their Adwords program (refer to Inside Adwords), it is imperative that internet marketers consistently tweak their ads to fit the new criteria.