Get more bank for your buck with Adwords

These are people who have made up their minds and are interested in your product, service or advice that you may offer - they are ever-so-ready to give out their credit card details, and your ad with its landing page will have to ensure this happens.

Keywords, keywords, keywords! They used long targeted and very specific keyword phrases that found your ad, and these are generally ads with low search volumes. The trick is finding those keywords and positioning your ad to get those clicks.

Keyword Research

Let's discuss the creation of focused keyword lists. I personally like these two keyword research tools:

• Google Adwords Keyword Tool
  
• Wordtracker

The Google Adwords Keyword Tool is good at finding core and sub-topic terms but pretty weak in finding terms with low search volumes. Wordtracker is perfect for spotting targeted low search terms / long tail keywords.

How to find core terms

This will be explained using the example 'digital camera' as a core term. This is very broad and receives about 30 million searches per month (globally). Our aim is to drill deep down to find less expensive keywords (terms) with higher conversion rates.

Enter 'digital camera' into the Google tool and select all phrases that reflect your offers. There are sometimes 100's of keywords listed. I would suggest copying them all into a spread sheet. To keep things simple I have chosen just five keywords (please note that five are not enough for a real PPC campaign).

• buy digital camera
  
• mini digital camera
  
• digital slr camera
  
• nikon digital camera
  
• canon digital camera

The keywords above show a sub-topic of the target market. Instead of targeting 'digital camera' we are now targeting people who want to buy digital camera, buy mini cameras, people who are looking for SLR, Nikon, and Canon cameras.

Using these keywords, plug them into the Google tool as well as the Wordtracker tool.

buy digital camera	mini digital camera	digital SLR camera	Nikon digital camera	canon digital camera
buy cheap digital camera	innovage mini digital camera	buy digital slr camera	buy nikon digital camera	buy canon digital camera
buy panasonic digital camera	precision mini digital camera	best digital slr camera	cheap nikon digital camera	cheap canon digital camera
buy digital video camera	smart mini digital camera	digital slr camera canon	nikon d70 digital camera	refurbished canon digital camera
buy digital cameras online	dual mode mini digital camera	nikon digital slr camera	new nikon digital camera	canon digital slr camera

During your PPC campaigns, you will end up with long keyword lists with 100's to 1000's in size, but we are keeping it simple in this article. Remember to also add in model numbers, as people do use model number within their searches.

Once you have a secondary keyword list, go ahead and drill deeper using the Google and Wordtracker tool, you will soon discover some highly-targeted, low search volume keywords. Add them into your spread sheet.

NB: Wordtracker gets its data from Dogpile and Metacrawler that holds around one percent of the search engine market share. Whenever Wordtracker shows a search count of one, multiple it by 60 to get the Google estimate.

Writing compelling ads

Your advert must persuade the searcher to click your ad either by answering a question, solving a problem, or finding exactly what they are looking for, while the landing page must deliver on the promises of the advert.

Once people arrive to your landing page a well-written persuasive sales letter with an enticing design must meet them. This should link to your call-to-action, be it a form that they fill in or an order page. The landing page must never link to the home page or any other generic page, as this will just be a waste of money.

You also want interested people only clicking on your ads, and this can be achieved by placing the price or a clear call to action within the actual advert. This will also eliminate 'curiosity' clicks.

Advert headline

The main purpose of the headline is to attract attention to your advert. So how do you do this?

• Use keywords
  
• Be sarcastic
  
• use reverse psychology
  
• Make a bold statement
  
• Ask a question

To get a better insight / ideas, or to get a feel for writing enticing headers, I suggest you look at magazine covers (headlines).

In the first and second lines you only have 35 characters each to entice the searcher to click your advert. Use this wisely. There are no specific rules to follow; one suggestion would be to use factual information with a call to action. Also use keywords as keywords add more relevance to your advert and Google may reward you by placing your ad higher up the order, with you not having to bid extra.

Display URL

It doesn't matter if you used the 'www' or don't use it, as the ads work well either way. In here you should also try to use the keywords eg: the display URL will show: www.mysite.co.za/DigitalCamera but the actual link will be to the landing page on that website and not necessarily to a page called DigitalCamera.

Destination URL

This is the actual address where the advert will link to; this is generally the landing page. Always send visitors to a targeted page pertaining to their keyword, as each keyword targets different segments of the market.

Increasing the click-through rate (CTR)

CTR affects the quality score and is one of the most important measurements in Google adwords. CTR is calculated by dividing the number of people who clicked your ad by the page impressions of the ad.

To increase your CTR you must constantly improve your ads by tweaking text, editing keyword lists, and call to action. One way to do this is to run two ads at the same time with slight differences. Let them run for about 100 times each. Then check the statistics and determine which ad has the greater click-through rates. Leave the best performing ad. Create another ad with slight modifications. Let them run 100 times and check stats again. Compare and keep repeating this cycle.

Make sure that each ad modification is insignificant. By doing this, you will know for sure what works and what doesn't.

Landing page

This is sometimes known as the lead capture page. The landing page is basically a sales page that is displayed after a person clicks on your ad. This page has to keep the same 'feel' as the ad and has to be well-written to entice the visitor to your call to action.

An effective landing page can double; triple and even quadruple your pay per click conversion rates.

If for example your ad said 'get a free ebook', after your call to action (maybe signing up for a newsletter), you must offer them a free ebook. Your landing page must also include your targeted keywords from the ad and must be a logical extension of the ad - you must keep the consistency flowing on the landing page.

Internet copywriting can quadruple conversion rates, so make sure to craft effective copy or hire a professional internet / web copywriter.