Hey fellas, and ladies. So ive spent the past week reading everything i can get my hands on regarding adwords. This is my new role at work since my promotion. As ive said in about every post ive made, heres a quick run-down of what we're looking to sell. We're an award-winning microsoft gold-certified partner specializing in enterprise consulting on various microsoft products including microsoft sharepoint, MOM, SMS, biztalk, exchange server, etc. etc. We're based in NYC and most of our clients are here, but we are willing to take on projects around the country and potentially around the world if the gig is right. So... The first product I'm going to work on, due to its current demand is Microsoft sharepoint (we do consulting on both 2003, wss, and 2007). Sharepoint is a slightly more competative product on adwords compared to other products we work with. However, there are still some keywords ive found that seem to get decent traffic (still low i think), with little or no competition. But anyhow, before I write a small novel (sorry), let me get to the point. I'd like to use this thread maybe to get some feedback on my first ever google adwords ad copy. So here goes: Get Sharepoint Help Award-winning Microsoft Sharepoint Consultants. Free test-drive today www.xxxx.com/sharepoint Note: i havent created the landing page yet, thats tomorrow (or friday). I have a fairly solid(i think) list of keywords, but im hesitant to post them. I can PM them if anyone wants to help!
The reality is the keyword(s), ad(s) and landing page(s) work together...it's basically impossible to say "that's good" or "that's bad" without seeing all three elements. I could say your ad looks great...but if you're bidding on the wrong keywords (in relation to your ad copy) and your landing page isn't related (in relation to your keywords and ad) then your ad really isn't all that great.
Okay, true. So my plan then, is to basically have different keyword groups for this product with different ads for each keyword group but still one landing page. The landing page will have a good amount of information and will include all keywords somewhere in it. With the title being something like... "XXX's SharePoint Consulting Services". Do you think as long as i work all the keywords in to the landing page i should only need one landing page for this campaign? Or do you think I need very very specific landing pages for each keyword group within the campaign (i hope not as managing so many landing pages could get extremely tedious when I have 10 product campaigns running).
I tend to be a bit anal in relation to others but typically each of my ad groups has 1 keyword and a landing page built specifically for that keyword and ad. That said, there are cases where there is overlap so a single landing page works for multiple ads/keywords. The bottom line for me is this - does my landing page perfectly represent what the user expected to see when they clicked on my ad...which hopefully perfectly answered their initial query.
Another tip: In stead of spending (for example) an hour writing 1 'perfect' ad, spend 10 minutes each on 6 different ads. Then split test them all in AdWords to find which performs most effectively, instead of making assumptions on what should work better
Sorry to go a bit off topic, but do you bid on common misspellings? If so, do you also create an ad group specifically for a misspelling? If so, do you even create a specific landing page for it?
Thanks. @ malcolmlo: I'd like to add to taulath's tip about split testing that you could also split test your landing pages. Select the best landing pages based on conversion ratio. Select the best ads based on CTR and conversion ratio. Maybe you already know all that; and it's not an answer to your question, but anyway...
Thankyou for the advice. And no i dont necessarily know that. I'm very green to the adwords, but this is going to be my primary focus moving forward so I have alot to learn. Funny, being a webmaster, I actually thought the whole "adwords thing" was fairly cut and dry. But after reading, wow was i wrong. All i know now is there are really 3 ways to optimize your campaigns. Through keywords, ad copy and landing pages. But thats about all I know, I'm planning to learn the rest through reading as much as i can, these forums and trial and error.