Quickly setting up an account and throwing any old advert together is a sure-fire way to lose money quickly with Google Adwords. To be successful requires a methodical and organised approach to Adwords that reflects the nature of your business and correctly targets the right customers through their searches.
Structure your campaign to reflect the nature of your business: For example, if you run an electronics e-shop, don't just have one ad group for all your products, divide them up into ad groups eg. cameras, mp3 players, phones etc. You want to be able to create specific adverts for specific products.
Create compelling adverts: make use of capitals, be original and always include a call to action eg. 'Buy now!'
Experiment: Don't just write one advert for each product and be done with it. Try a few different things out, change the wording or call to action. Google will automatically rotate your ads until it figures out which one is working best (ie. has the highest CTR).
Use relevant and highly targeted keywords: Say you want to sell a digital Canon camera for £100, then be as specific as you can in your keyword selection. Adding in a general term like 'cameras' will bring you lots of unwanted traffic if the users are looking for film cameras. Searchers are getting smarter and more specific in their use of Google, so you should be too. Also, by having more accurate keywords, in this case 'Canon cameras', you will have a higher quality score which will mean higher ranked ads for less money.
Make sure you have a relevant landing page: There's no point creating great ads if they lead to an ugly page, 404 or index page where the user has to hunt for the product they were looking for in the first place. If you're selling a digital camera for £100 in the ad, make sure that the first thing a user sees when they land on your site is the £100 camera they are looking for. You'll have a better chance of converting and decrease your bounce rate considerably if you do this. Also, Google uses the quality of your landing page to determine your keyword Quality Score.
Budget Correctly: Google gives you the option to set daily and overall budgets for your campaigns so you can easily stay within your budget. Say you have £3000 to spend. It would be easy to blow this in a week with Adwords, but you will be better off using it daily over a few months so you can monitor and hone your account improving CTR, adding negative keywords, restructuring etc as you learn more about Adwords and what works best for you. Your account will improve in time as you learn and as it improves, so you get the right customers for less money per click.
Study your account: Google now offers unlimited resources to learn how to more efficiently use Adwords, even certification, but this is no substitute for just playing around with your account, getting to know the interface and watching it week by week to see what is working for you. Don't make too many changes too quickly, but keep a close eye on what is happening with your account and it can only improve for you.
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Friday, September 17, 2010
How to pass Google Adwords Fundamentals Exam
Having recently passed the Google Adwords Fundamentals Exam I thought I'd share a few things for anyone else studying to sit. It's a tricky one and certainly not to be underestimated!
Preparation
1. Read everything in the Learning Centre - Google highlights the correct topics for each exam, but actually, the Fundamentals exam throws in questions from the Search, Display and Reporting exam syllabuses too!
2. Watch all the videos, e-learnings, etc. - These break things down much easier and are a good way to absorb the information. Trying to read everything from the screen is mind-numbing at times and often impossible to comprehend.
3. Spend as long as you can exploring your Adwords accounts, testing all the different settings, reports, tabs and getting to know the interface as well as you can. Several questions are no more than 'Where can you find this function in the Adwords interface?' so its worth knowing your way about.
4. Understand the logistics of setting up and sharing accounts and especially MCC. There are a lot of questions on what levels of access you should give clients, administrators, etc.
5. Make notes or memorise the requirements for display and video ads. There are plenty of technical questions in there like 'What is the maximum length of a video ad?' and so on.
Sitting the Exam
1. Find a quiet room with no distractions and turn off your phone. I neglected to do this and the noise and disruption drove me crazy while I was trying to concentrate.
2. Make sure to mark the questions you're not sure of so you can review them at the end.
3. Be careful to read the questions correctly. Some of them are awkwardly phrased and need re-reading twice before they make sense.
4. Often, there seems to be more than one correct answer. In this case you should choose the best of these.
5. 120 questions in 120 minutes gives you plenty of time, so think out each question carefully and don't rush.
One last thing....Good luck!
Preparation
1. Read everything in the Learning Centre - Google highlights the correct topics for each exam, but actually, the Fundamentals exam throws in questions from the Search, Display and Reporting exam syllabuses too!
2. Watch all the videos, e-learnings, etc. - These break things down much easier and are a good way to absorb the information. Trying to read everything from the screen is mind-numbing at times and often impossible to comprehend.
3. Spend as long as you can exploring your Adwords accounts, testing all the different settings, reports, tabs and getting to know the interface as well as you can. Several questions are no more than 'Where can you find this function in the Adwords interface?' so its worth knowing your way about.
4. Understand the logistics of setting up and sharing accounts and especially MCC. There are a lot of questions on what levels of access you should give clients, administrators, etc.
5. Make notes or memorise the requirements for display and video ads. There are plenty of technical questions in there like 'What is the maximum length of a video ad?' and so on.
Sitting the Exam
1. Find a quiet room with no distractions and turn off your phone. I neglected to do this and the noise and disruption drove me crazy while I was trying to concentrate.
2. Make sure to mark the questions you're not sure of so you can review them at the end.
3. Be careful to read the questions correctly. Some of them are awkwardly phrased and need re-reading twice before they make sense.
4. Often, there seems to be more than one correct answer. In this case you should choose the best of these.
5. 120 questions in 120 minutes gives you plenty of time, so think out each question carefully and don't rush.
One last thing....Good luck!
Thursday, August 19, 2010
How to do well in Google Maps
Top tips for ranking highly in Google Maps (at least in the UK!):
- Proximity to location - The closer your registered business address is in distance to the centre of a town or city, the more relevant Google will find your listing to a location search
- Categories selected - Being listed in a relevant or closely related category to a keyword can make an impact. Keeping the number of categories selected concise should also improve the likelihood of being listed for relevant searches.
- Local telephone numbers - This may be coincidental, but I've noticed local telephone numbers such as 01865 (Oxford) appear to outrank listings which use 0845 style of numbers.
- Having a full profile/reviews - Listings which use images, descriptions and contain reviews generally appear to rank well in Google Maps. A high number of positive reviews is also likely to have an influence.
- Location information on website - Ensuring your website address details correspond with the companies Google Maps listing.
- Strong SEO - This doesn't appear to be of high importance at the moment, but as the Google Maps algorithm develops we may see the relevancy and quality of a website's content and link popularity becoming a major factor.
- Complete your profile 100%. There is a completion bar on your stats page that lets you know when you have fully completed your profile. This includes filling in EVERYTHING. That includes your opening times, how you take payment, adding at least 3 photos and adding something in the additional facilities box at the bottom too. This will significantly affect your ranking, so make sure you do it.
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