The 5 most common mistakes running Google Adwords
If you are doing marketing in a small business, you probably do the Google AdWords yourself. Google AdWords is a perfect place for you to get traffic. You only pay for the clicks you really get. It sounds amazing – and it can be amazing. But it can also be a lot of wasted money if you don’t do it right.
Here in this article I will get your attention on the 5 most common mistakes navigating in the PPC waters. The good thing about this is – that the mistakes are very easy to fix. So if I did help you send me a comment – deal?
1. Not using specific ad copy in your PPC ads
There is not much space in the Google AdWords or in your Yahoo ads. With Google AdWords you have 70 characters all together, and in Yahoo you 190 characters in a text ad. So you have to be very specific in your text.
But listen here. You have to use your keyword in your text. And the more times the better 🙂 Your keyword will light up with bold letters. So use it as much as you can. The headline has to be very captivating and make the people curious. In The 2nd line you must tell the potential customers the single biggest benefit that they get. What makes your company better then the other ones. The 3rd line of your ad should tell about a feature of your product or service – and remember to use your keyword here too.
Then you would properly ask me – do you have to make a lot of ads for all your different keywords – and the answer is yes 🙂 Sometimes you can make a group of related keywords. But to use an ad for each keyword will do much better. (Another trick is to use a code so you can write the keyword automatic no matter which of the keywords a customer is searching for. Using this trick in the headline can make all the difference too – read about this in my Free Complete SeoCustomer Guide 2011).
2. Using your home page as the landing page.
No matter which search engine you are using don’t ever use your homepage as the landing page.
Every time a customer has to click on your page you will lose some of them. Maybe your ads told the visitors that they could get “cheap pants” but on your homepage you are telling people to look at your clothes shop.
Visitors don’t have time to read a lot of stuff and then try to locate your cheap pants somewhere on your website. So – if you are telling people about “cheap pants” take them to your page about cheap pants.
3. Not customizing your landing page to your keyword searches
In the perfect PPC world the customer search for “used cars” and he finds your ads very exciting. So he reads your ad – and he loves what he reads. So when he click on your ad don’t disappoint him. Use the same headline. Did you promise him a cheap car? Did you promise him a free test drive? Use the catchy headline from your ad as the headline on your landing page too. So yes customize your landing page to the keyword.
4. Not securing high enough placement with your bids
Both Google and Yahoo use a combination of relevance and biding to calculate the placement of your ad.
It is estimated that 85% of all the PPC happens in one of the 3 top positions on a page. So be sure your ad is placed there. You can use a keyword tool like Wordtracker or Google Keyword Tool to do some research on your keywords.
Look for keywords with enough traffic and without a lot of competitors bidding for the same keyword. A simple trick is never to use just a one word for a keyword – always use a 2-word phrase. So don’t use the word “pants” instead use “cheap pants” or “quality pants” or “super pants”. Or maybe even 3-words phrases like “Super Quality Pants”. One word keywords are in general must to expensive for you to get into top3 placement.
5. Not testing your ads
Most people forget to test their ads. You can never really be sure what will trick the audience to click the ad. Which of the heads is the best, which of the features do they like most. So always, always, always make 2 ads for each keyword and do the split test.
You can let Google AdWords automatically choose the ad that is performing best. So when you know which one is the best, take the other one away and do a new split test. This will be a never ending story. But the good part is that your ad will get better and better all the time.
Like testing the ads you will have to test your keywords. Which ones are performing good and which ones are bad. You will have to continually take away the bad ones, try new ones – and all the time makes your PPC campaign better and better. So remember never to start a PPC campaign and just let it run on autopilot. Google AdWords or Yahoo is not traffic on autopilot. You will have to keep an eye on it, test it and make it better and better all the time.
Get your Free Complete SeoCustomer Guide 2011 with more tips and tricks
I think that was 5 common mistakes. And you can see – it’s easy to fix theses mistakes. So take a cup of coffee and log into your Google Adwords campaign or Yahoo. And fix your ads. Make the split test, remove your bad keywords, make customized your landing pages. You will be amazed.
Remember to add me to your Google+ circles and sign up for the Free Complete Seocustomer Guide 2011. You will find a lot tips and tricks – also about PPC campaigns.
And remember to come back here and give me a comment so I can hear about your results too.
As always – all the best to you
Henrik
