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Google Adwords is a great
tool! Careful use can lead to legions of highly targeted
visitors breaching the moat around your site, and
demanding to pillage your products! On the other hand...
Adwords is also a great
place to drain your advertising dollars if you're not
careful. Like any other automated system, it requires
constant feeding and attention to keep you from wondering
just why you spent hundreds of dollars and received a
paltry return on your investment. Here's 7 great ways I've
found to do just that, (and yes I've been guilty of
several of these to one degree or another.)
1. - Not getting enough
keywords, and I don't mean just numbers. Good ones. A lot
of people run a search on their favorite keyword tool and
pick the top ten or twenty words or phrases getting the
most traffic, thinking somehow that THEY will beat all the
others using these keywords. There is a reason why these
keywords are so popular: everybody and their grandmother
are bidding on them! A much better approach is to come up
with at least a couple hundred, better a couple thousand
words that you have a shot at getting a high ranking for.
After all, if you have 1800 keywords and can get a top 8
(first page) position for most of them, you'll see a lot
more clicks than you will chasing the top dollar words. If
you get a hundred of the lower tier words giving you a
couple of visitors a day, well, you do the math. Not only
that, but often the less expensive words are altogether
more specific, delivering far more targeted visitors.
2. - Not creating adgroups.
You should use this function! It can help you focus your
advertising much more effectively. By arranging your
keywords in tightly focused groups of 10- 30 phrases, and
writng a keyword-specific headline for each of them, you
have a much greater ability to see what's working and
what's not. Also gives you a chance to test different
headlines and text copy.
3. - No negative keywords.
This you gotta do. And it's so easy. Simply add -free (or
whatever else you don't want associated with your
searches) and you won't end up paying for a lot of clicks
for people who weren't interested in the first place.
4. - Using only broad
keyword searches for their keywords. When you're paying
for this stuff, you want to be as specific as you can,
particularly if you're playing in a very competitive
market. Why hope that a broad search will return someone
interested in what you're selling? Better to get as
focused as you can on the words they may be searching for.
Google helps you with this by giving you more information
on the impressions and click-throughs than you can handle,
but be pro-active, and prune the dead wood after 100 or so
impressions. If they haven't produced by then, the odds of
them improving by leaps and bounds are not great.
5. - Not testing and
rotating your ads. Even a small change in a headline or ad
text can make a HUGE difference! Particularly headlines.
Your ad text won't be read if the headline is boring or
uninviting. Learn to write killer headlines, and do not be
afraid to test and rotate your ads. Also don't be shy
about deleting ad groups if they're not clicking through
enough. Remember, you've got a list of several hundred
words; either these aren't right or the headline/text need
tweaking. Test, test, test!
6. - Not using the content
targeted feature wisely. This is a tricky one. Google, in
it's infinite wisdom, seeks out alternate avenues to show
your ads, thus delivering substantially more clicks to
your campaign. Trouble is, though, you have no control
over this, and it IS your money. If you are attempting to
run a tightly focused campaign on limited funds, this one
is a potential budget buster. It can easily rack up a lot
of clicks, but are they of worth to you? In my experience,
the CTR is ALWAYS a lot lower. I guess it could make sense
for large campaigns with a very popular product, but for
the most part, you'll want to be very careful. Which leads
me to my last, and most important dollar-drainer of all.
7. - Not having a GREAT
sales page. This one is the hardest to fix, but without
doubt the most important. All the clicks in the world
won't mean a thing if the sales page you're sending your
hard-earned visitors to doesn't get the job done. If it's
your product, there's hope! You can address these issues,
and after testing and more testing, can correct and come
up with a page thst sings! If you're an affiliate, you
might consider a separate landing page, where you might
offer a sincere testimonial in an attempt to presell the
product more effectively. (That is not a bad strategy even
with a good sales page, as personal recomendations go a
long way!)
There you have it. 7 Great
ways to lose infinitely more than your shirt!
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