Adwords Miracle � Don’t Make Assumptions That You Can No Longer Afford …

Adwords Miracle � Don’t Make Assumptions That You Can No Longer Afford …

I made a post in a forum the other day, posing a small conundrum which you can read here:

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=171637

It’s interesting how different people measure the success, or otherwise, of their Google Adwords campaigns. I’m always advocating testing, but there has to be a few caveats when you run tests.

The example which I gave in the forum was as follows, and was based on an actual campaign that I had managed for a client in the past.

Imagine you have an Adwords group with two ads running with optimisation turned off, i.e. Google Adwords Miracle Guide will just distribute the search traffic uniformally between your two ad creatives. After 160 you can see that Ad A has a CTR of 6.8% and Ad B has a CTR of 1.2%

Now the question is, which ad do you run with? Which one do you axe?

Adwords Miracle � Hear it directly from the king of Adwords …

Adwords Miracle � Hear it directly from the king of Adwords …: "Hear it directly from the king of Adwords …

Ask anyone who’s had any success with Google Adwords as to who the ‘king’ or the ultimate ‘guru’ is, they will surely tell you just one name …

Howard Sandford

… erm, ok, in my dreams :-) (I wish it was, and I’m sure it will be one day!)

Seriously though, most of the experts will agree that the main man is Perry Marshall. His Adwords Definitive Guide is possibly the first stop for most wannabe Adwords experts, though I still recommend The Adwords Miracle Guide … which one is best, hmmm difficult to say because they both arrive at the same destination by travelling in different directions. There are a few essential nuggets in each, which the other doesn’t have, so if you can afford it go for both. If not, then just pick one, steal some Adwords strategies from this blog and site, and make your fortune so that you can afford the other one!

Anyway, what I wanted to tell you about is a video that I found on Google Video which, although the quality leaves a bit to be desired, is quite a cool seminar session that Perry Marshall delivered. He talks about Adwords (of course!) and how it can be used not just for advertising your wares."

Adwords Miracle � Searching for the holy grail of search engine marketing ….

Adwords Miracle � Searching for the holy grail of search engine marketing ….: "Searching for the holy grail of search engine marketing ….

Trying to find the most elegant combination of keyword search terms and matching adword creatives might just be the most time consuming, but necessary evil task since the quest for the holy grail.

It certainly seems that way when you notice how much time, effort, and money is invested just to gain an extra 0.5% return on CTR.

And the number of tools that are out there willing to help you with the task are increasing daily. There’s definitely no shortage of software, guides, and even coaching services — not to mention the countlesss organisations that are willing to handle the task for you, eh?

So what’s wrong with managing it manually, working out the most profitable combination of bid and creative by hand? Well this is exactly what I would suggest for the beginner. Learn the craft by getting your hands dirty.

You’ll learn so much more, this way, about how Google Adwords works though it’s unfortunate that any SEM (search engine marketing) and PPC (pay per click) system has a steep learning curve for the newbie.

So what can we do to tread the fine balance between learning how to use the system, gaining the most appropriate knowledge, and saving our cash to promote the most profitable of ads?

Invest in a step-by-step guide."

Adwords Miracle � Google Adwords - How To Protect Yourself From Losing Cash By Being Totally Negative In Your Approach …

Adwords Miracle � Google Adwords - How To Protect Yourself From Losing Cash By Being Totally Negative In Your Approach …

Anyway, I had someone ask about negative keywords and how it affects your Adwords account. So what’s the big fuss about negative keywords? Why would they be at all useful for an Adwords campaign? And what are they anyway?

What we really want to do is stop the ad from showing for these irrelevant searches, and this is where negative keywords comes in.

So, how do we go about setting up our negative terms? Simple. Use any keyword suggestion tool that you have access to, whether it’s the Overture/Yahoo Search Marketing tool, the Google Adwords tool, or expert packages such as Keyword Elite, and run your usual search for keywords. But this time, each time you come across something that doesn’t really match your desired campaign, guess what … you’ve found a potential negative keyword term.

So there you go. Negative keywords in a nutshell, but of course if you had read The Adwords Miracle Guide you would have known all about it, eh?

Adwords Miracle � What Makes The Best Landing Page? … Is It Cash Or CTR You’re Looking For From Adwords?

Adwords Miracle � What Makes The Best Landing Page? … Is It Cash Or CTR You’re Looking For From Adwords?: "What Makes The Best Landing Page? … Is It Cash Or CTR You’re Looking For From Adwords?

Ok, here’s a question for you. Would you rather have 100 clicks to your web-site through Google Adwords, or would you prefer to have 1 single extra sale?

Not a difficult question really, is it. Give me the sale any day.

Which is why it surprises me that so many adwords advertisers go gunning all out for more and more clicks, usually by bidding on search terms that aren’t even relevant (because they haven’t heard about negative keyword matching, or if they have heard about it then they haven’t done anything about it!), or by wasting their advertising budget on attempting to gain top slot each and every time. Hey, I’ve talked about the latter in the past on this blog, so I won’t rant and rave about this one too much, I promise :-) and I’ll make sure I cover negative keyword matching in another blog soon (but I truly suggest you check out The Adwords Miracle Guide if you really want to know the score.)"

Adwords Miracle � Testing The Effectiveness Of Your Landing Page Is No Longer A Chore … Thanks To Google Again!

Adwords Miracle � Testing The Effectiveness Of Your Landing Page Is No Longer A Chore … Thanks To Google Again!: "Testing The Effectiveness Of Your Landing Page Is No Longer A Chore … Thanks To Google Again!

Ever wanted to know whether your landing page was effective or not? Did you know that by changing a single headline or even modifying the colours you use on your site might just increase your conversion rate?

Welcome to the world of split testing - the one weapon in the marketeer’s arsenal that can help you improve the effectiveness of your landing pages. And even small changes can move mountains …

… for there was one landing page I worked on that by simply adding quotation marks around the headline significantly changed the conversion rate! How odd, you might think, but who knows what goes on behind the minds of the average web-site visitor.

And guess what, Google have come up with a wonderful new tool to help you as part of the Adwords collection of tools: The Google Adwords Website Optimizer"

Adwords Miracle � Discover The One Simple Adwords Strategy That Can Deliver Higher Profits … Instantly!

Adwords Miracle � Discover The One Simple Adwords Strategy That Can Deliver Higher Profits … Instantly!: "Discover The One Simple Adwords Strategy That Can Deliver Higher Profits … Instantly!

You know, you don’t have to be number one to get clicks to your web-site.

Thing is, not everyone remembers this in their Google Adwords advertising frenzy. Instead some chump in marketing throws a bucketful of cash just to be The Number One Giuy for a particular campaign and set of search terms.

Ho hum.

When will they get it into their hard-wired brains that it’s not maintaining the top slot that gets them sales — especially when it drives them further and further into the red — but it’s conversions that gets the sales. They ought to be measuring ROI rather than ladder position; measuring conversion rates and comparing this to positioning.

And never forget the number one rule about SEM (search engine marketing) and PPC (pay per click) … it’s not about buying clicks, it’s about buying customers!"

Adwords Miracle � How To Con Adwords Visitors Into Believing You Have What They’re Looking For … Guaranteed!

Adwords Miracle � How To Con Adwords Visitors Into Believing You Have What They’re Looking For … Guaranteed!: "The thing is, why did they write a title that was soooooo specific to my search, and then not follow up with the same precision with the content?

Well, it’s because they cheated.

And by the end of this article, you’ll be able to cheat too :-)

You see, they didn’t write up an ad for each and every product they had, because that would have been a nightmare to organise and manage, but instead they used an often overlooked short-cut that Google Adwords gives you.

Rather than type the name of the product as the title of their ad, you can simply use:

{Keyword: Alternative Text}

What this will do is replace the text in curly brackets with seach term that the visitor uses, unless it’s too big to fit in, in which case it will use the ‘Alternative Text’ instead. Once you begin to move beyond basic background information, you begin to realise that there’s more to Adwords than you may have first thought."