my very first adwords campaign - any help appreciated!

Discussion in 'Google AdWords' started by Mr Crow, Apr 10, 2006.

  1. #1
    I am running my first adwords campaign,
    I am promoting this site www.SubmitContent.com these are the adwords I used

    article submitter
    Article Directories
    Submit Articles
    Submit Content
    article submission
    article submissions
    article submitter pro
    submit article
    submit articles
    submit your article

    This is what the ad says
    Free Article Submissions
    Submit Articles free
    Includes sites, blogs, groups
    www.submitcontent.com

    I have no clue if I am doing it right- so any suggestions would greatly appreciated!
     
    Mr Crow, Apr 10, 2006 IP
  2. BILZ

    BILZ Peon

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    #2
    To make PPC more effecive here are some tips:

    Create a good landing page
    Use descriptive ads
    target low cost keywords

    read more here: google adwords tips
     
    BILZ, Apr 10, 2006 IP
  3. Darkhodge

    Darkhodge Well-Known Member

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    #3
    I'm writing an article on AdWords now that I've seen this thread - I'll post it here when I'm done... :eek:
     
    Darkhodge, Apr 10, 2006 IP
  4. Darkhodge

    Darkhodge Well-Known Member

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    #4
    Done! Although I got bored near the end so it may be a bit rushed!:D Get more articles like this on my site (check my sig)! This is the first one I've written myself though!

    Hope you find it useful!:eek:

    Copyright 2006 H.Hashi
    Please don't just copy and paste this onto your site! PM me first if you want to do that!


    =====

    A Google AdWords campaign can be optimized in a similar fashion to websites to lower "Cost Per Click" (CPC) and increase the "Click Through Rate" (CTR).

    Google AdWords give you, the advertiser credit for submitting relevant advertisements. If you have an effectively designed advertisement on AdWords, Google will show your advertisement heigher up in the sponsored links list, giving you more exposure with lower CPC. This will in turn increase the CTR for that ad group, which allows Google to determine that your advertisement is indeed related to the keyword searched. As CTR is also a factor in determining the relevancy of your ads, an increase in CTR results in higher rankings in the sponsored links section.

    So how can you design your advertisement so that is it most effective and achieves a high CTR?

    Let's look at an example to help me explain things.

    Say I run a baby keepsake website (which I actually do) that provides information on baby keepsake footprints. Some keywords I might consider using are listed below:


    Baby keepsakes
    What are baby keepsakes?
    Buying a baby keepsake
    etc...


    Now what I could do is to set-up an AdWords adverts like this:

    Now that I have created an advertisement what many people would be tempted to do is to assign all the keywords I can think of to this advert.

    This is not the approach to take!

    One of the most important things you must realise is the fact that you need to target specific keywords in each individual ad. There seems to be a tendency for advertisers to create one advertisement for multiple keywords. This is probably due to the way in which the AdWords site is layed out. Advertisers are asked to create the advertisement before assigning keywords to it.

    What you should do when designing a AdWords campaign is to think, "what are the keywords I'm trying to target?" and then create individual advertisements for each keyword by making use of ad groups. So using the keywords above I would create an ad group for "Baby keepsakes", another one for "what are baby keepsakes?" and so on.

    There are also other things you can do to improve the effectiveness of your advertisements. Let's take a look at the advert I mentioned before:

    Now when Google show these advertisements, they emphasise the keywords within the ad by making it bold. Let's say someone searched the keyphrase "buying a baby keepsake" and that (for the sake of this example) I still had all my keywords assigned to that ad - the following would appear:

    Note the fact that AdWords don't enbold "keepsakes" even though it is just the plural of "keepsake". Basically it needs to be an exact match unless it's in the URL. If our site was called "www. keepsakes. com", the search for "keepsake" would still return "www. keepsakes. com".

    These points put aside you will notice that this advertisement can be optimized much further. When creating an ad for individual keywords you should take the following points into account:


    1. The Title
    Let's say we're creating an ad for the keyphrase "buying a baby keepsake". The title should include these words, or as many of these words as possible as this will increase the visibility of your advertisement.

    Another thing you could consider is to try and engage your visior by asking a question in your title. For example "Are you buying a baby keepsake?" would be a good title as it includes the keywords and also manages to engage the viewer (although it's too long to fit).

    2. Description
    This needs to be as informative as possible and provide an incentive for your visitor to click on the ad and visit your site. The inclusion of keywords will increase the visibility once again and increase the relevancy of your ad to their search. An example is shown below:

    3. url
    The url is another place where the visitor and Google will check to see if your site is relevant to the search term. Try and include keywords in the url if possible by creating pages such as "keyword.htm" etc...

    4. Capitalization
    According to some experts capitalization can have an impact on the effectiveness of your advertisement. By capitalization I don't mean use capitals through out the ad - Google wouldn't allow it anyway. What you should do is capitalize the first word of every letter except words such as "of" etc...

    5. Geo-Targeting
    Google allow you to show your ads to people in specific areas. If you're a window cleaning company based in the UK there's no point showing your advertisement to people anywhere else in the world so make sure you specify that when creating your ad campaign.

    6. Trial and Error
    You should always be monitoring and then optimizing your ads. If one of your ads isn't going as well as you'd like it to you should make changes to the ad to try and improve it's performance. That said you shouldn't just make changes to the original ad. Try creating a new advertisement for the same keyword and run both at the same time. That way you can compare the new ad with the old ad and keep the one that performs best.

    You should be doing this in the long run - creating new ads all the time and filtering the ones that perform best.


    Now that we have discussed the different aspects involved in creating an advert, lets consider the optimized ad compared to the old ad mentioned above for the search "buying a baby keepsake" (as it would be shown on SERPs):

    The Old Ad:
    The New Ad:
    Which would you say is more visible and relevant to the search phrase "buying a baby keepsake"? (Although I admit it looks a little spammy on here but that's just because of the text etc...)

    ====
    Copyright 2006 H.Hashi
    Please don't just copy and paste this onto your site! PM me first if you want to do that!
     
    Darkhodge, Apr 10, 2006 IP
  5. Darkhodge

    Darkhodge Well-Known Member

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    #5
    I'll post this as a new thread as well in case other people are interested...
     
    Darkhodge, Apr 10, 2006 IP
  6. Mr Crow

    Mr Crow Peon

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    #6
    Darkhodge's Wow thanks friend
     
    Mr Crow, Apr 10, 2006 IP
  7. Darkhodge

    Darkhodge Well-Known Member

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    #7
    No probs! I needed to write some articles for my site anyway. :eek:

    Talking about articles, very nice site you have. I submitted some guitar lesson articles today! :D
     
    Darkhodge, Apr 10, 2006 IP
  8. iShopHQ

    iShopHQ Peon

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    #8
    Is the URL you are driving to the same one you listed in your sample ad in your first post?

    If that is the case, when I land on your home page, it takes me a significant amount of time to find info about actually submitting an article. Then, when I find the submit article link on th elft, it takes me to a log in page. So far I have NO information about your service. I just clicked the second submit article link s(under publishers) and I'm on another login page.

    Guess what? I just left your site and went to the next one.....

    Land then on a page that specifically gives them information on your article submission service.

    Your submission guidelines page tells me what I need to do - where can I learn about what you are going to do for me?

    Take a second look at your ad as well. The best way to prequalify custeomrs is to give them all the information they need to know up front if they are interested in your service.

    You are telling me Free Submission Service. When I go to you site, I can find any info on your service or instructions on how to use it. By clicking around I assume I need to register to use it, but you didn't tell me that up front.

    Free Article Submissions
    Register to submit your article for
    free to 100+ blogs, groups, & sites

    This tells them what they have to do and what they have to get. You will automatically eliminate anyone who doesn't happen to feel like registering for anything. Then land them on a page that describes in detail:

    What they have to do
    What they are going to get
     
    iShopHQ, Apr 11, 2006 IP
  9. tomzx

    tomzx Peon

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    #9
    That's actually a quite good use of those "deceptive keywords". You tell them what to do and what they get for that.

    You should also think about writing a small text about your site. What is it about, what can you do, what can you get. You include that on your front page, at the top, make it poping out so people start out with that. When I go to your site, I'm lost, I see tons of things and I don't want to waste my time finding out where to start.
     
    tomzx, Apr 11, 2006 IP
  10. Mr Crow

    Mr Crow Peon

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    #10
    Thanks People

    For the great feed back.. I will be making changes fast ..

    Thanks Again

    David
     
    Mr Crow, Apr 11, 2006 IP
  11. Mr Crow

    Mr Crow Peon

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    #11
    Will you please look at www.SubmitContent.com landing page now I have added the text there now - and a "Sign Up Now! " is being added under the text .. we moved some stuff around - I have already notice an increase today. Thanks so much !!
     
    Mr Crow, Apr 12, 2006 IP
  12. iShopHQ

    iShopHQ Peon

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    #12
    what's the url of the landing page? The home page looks the same...
     
    iShopHQ, Apr 12, 2006 IP
  13. BrianCarter

    BrianCarter Peon

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    #13
    The things that will make or break you are
    how are you making money from the traffic?
    How much are you going to be paying for clicks?
    Can you raise CTR significantly to lower your costs.
    Always be testing two ads against one another to increase CTR.

    Brian Carter
    adwordsconsultant.blogspot.com
     
    BrianCarter, Apr 12, 2006 IP
  14. Mr Crow

    Mr Crow Peon

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    #14
    It is www.SubmitContent.com I replaced it,
    telling the vistors what we are about there is a link that will be added tonight to take them directly to the sign up page that I highlighted in red in the post above.

    I really could use to see what I am doing wrong in the landing page
     
    Mr Crow, Apr 12, 2006 IP
  15. iShopHQ

    iShopHQ Peon

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    #15
    As far as what you are advertising for, your home page still doesn't work for me. When it loads, there's just too much disparate information there for me to pick out what portions are relevant to the reason I clicked.

    Here's an example of a campaign I ma running to sell permananet text links from my article site.

    My ad:
    Permanent Text Links
    Buy permanent, one-way, relevant
    and direct text links for only $15

    Tells them what they are going to get and how much they are going to have to pay to get it.

    I don't drive them to my home page, I drive them to a customized page I built specifically to receive traffic from this campaign:

    http://www.freearticlehq.com/permalink.htm

    You need to do the same thing. Drop them on a page that talks only about what you are trying to sell them

    Here's what you get
    Here what it costs
    Here's why you should do it
    Then TELL them what to do with a link - Click here to start

    You can have your site look and feel and navigation, but the main content area should be totally devoted to your offering and not have any competition from anything else.
     
    iShopHQ, Apr 13, 2006 IP
  16. Lingerie Lady

    Lingerie Lady Peon

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    #16
    That was a great article. I just started my first AdWords campaign (and signed up here when I browsed the forum and found lots of helpful information). I am still in the very early stages and your article cleraed up a lot of questions I had about the effective use of keywords in the ad itself. Now I am working on more targeted keywords. I never thought of using a whole sentence like you did - I have been doing two or three word phrases.

    Is the punctuation and capitalization really important to the search, i.e. can I just do "where can I buy widgets" rather than "Where can I buy widgets?"

    So I am not totally hijacking the thread - Mr. Crow - my little experience has shown me that having a landing page with nothing except the answer to the phrases searched for performs far better than just landing on my home page. I think you would do well to have a separate page that just has "Register to submit - blah blah relevant information - click here to start." I know when I am searching I am in a hurry and if I clicked and landed on your front page I would probably be in too much of a rush to read what looks like a lot of text and would probably back right up to Google and try the next ad to see if it was faster info for me.

    Cheers and good luck!
     
    Lingerie Lady, Apr 13, 2006 IP
  17. BrianCarter

    BrianCarter Peon

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    #17
    Hmm anyone with lingerie is allowed to hijack the thread, in my opinion :)

    If they are broad match, two or three word phrases are
    the way to go. If you do a whole sentence, make it a
    phrase or exact match- e.g. "where can I buy lingerie?"
    or [where can I buy lingerie]

    The more specific you make it like that, the fewer
    impressions you get (in my experience, practically zero,
    so it's almost point of diminishing returns- better to find
    the bigger volume big bang profitable ones)

    this is certainly true- the home page as a destination url
    should only be used with branding phrases- people searching
    for your brand- even then you might create a special page
    for them to confirm the value of your brand- most traffic to
    home page are complete newbies... and you need to convert
    them to brand fans

    specific dest urls for specific phrases is the way to maximize
    conversion rate- and it's easy for newbies to adwords to forget
    how important CR is because adwords itself focuses so much on
    CTR.

    I agree, that homepage is way too busy Mr Crow- your first two
    paragraphs in the middle are so important that they could be much
    bigger. you seem to be displaying adsense ads so prominently
    that that may be your most wanted response (MWR) for this page?
    to get clicks? If not, put them elsewhere. try to get one main
    most wanted response for each page.
     
    BrianCarter, Apr 17, 2006 IP