How and When to Use Dynamic Keywords

One of the most powerful techniques to boost your click-thru-rates is one that Google surprisingly does not talk much about.

The technique allows you to put whatever search term a user types-in into your headline.

It's called a "Dynamic Keyword."  To use it, you simply input the code, {KeyWord:Default Headline} into your headline.

The code "KeyWord" tells Google to put the searcher's key search terms in your headline.  But, if it's real long (doesn't fit), your normal headline is shown.  You input your normal headline where it says "Default Headline" above.

Here's an example.  Your headline is, {KeyWord: Secret AdWord Strategy}

The user types in, "Advertise On Google" (a term you're bidding on).  This then becomes your headline.

If the user types-in, "Strategies to advertise on Google," then "Secret AdWord Strategy" becomes your headline since the search query is too long to fit.

By capitalizing the "K" and "W" in "KeyWord," you're telling Google that you want it to capitalize each word in the searcher's query.  So, "advertise on google" becomes "Advertise On Google."

This technique is very powerful to boost click-through-rates.  Searchers immediately see what they typed in your headline.  It's shown in bold letters and makes the searcher think you have exactly what they're looking for.

Of course, you can now see a downside of using it.  This can sometimes result in un-targeted traffic.  For instance, if a searcher types-in, "Advertise on Google," they may be looking for instructions on how to do so.  You may not want to attract this kind of searcher.

All-in-all, the dynamic headline is a useful technique.  If you have tight ad groups with custom written ads for each, it becomes less important.  This is because each of your ads is already written around each keyword.

Nonetheless, it's still worth testing and is very effective if you have a number of different keywords in an Ad Group.

The How and Why of Website Optimizer

Have you ever had a debate about what your website should look like?  What colors, headline, or graphics will be the most effective?

If there are multiple folks making these decisions, it can sometimes be increasingly frustrating.  Everybody has different opinions.

Luckily, you don't have to base what your website looks like on opinions.

In addition, to conversion tracking and analytics, Google also provides an advanced split testing solution inside your account called, "Website Optimizer."

If you're not familiar with the concept of split testing, it's simply running multiple variations of your landing page at the same time to uncover what's most effective.

It lets your customers tell you what they respond to.  

There are two different kinds of split testing:

1.  A/B split testing (the most basic kind).  This type only has 2 variations.  A visitor may type in your website http://www.YourWebsite.com and half will be sent to variation A and the rest are sent to variation B.

The visitors have no idea that they are not seeing the same exact page as everyone else.

A/B split testing is ideal when you have low traffic volume.

2.  Multivariate split testing.  This is a more accurate test than A/B.  It allows you to test unlimited variations to your sales page.

The reason it's more accurate than A/B is that it tests all of your variations with each other.

For instance, if you test red and green headlines and a new picture, here are the pages that are tested:

*  Red headline with new picture

*  Red headline with old picture

*  Green headline with new picture

*  Green headline with old picture.

The A/B split test might look like:

*  Red headline versus green headline.

Then when this test is done, you would do:

* Winner of first test versus new picture.

Do you see why multivariate is more accurate?  With A/B, the losing headline color is never tested with the new picture.  

Who's to say that those two aren't the winning combination?

The downside is that you need a lot more traffic to get accurate results because you're testing far more variations.

This then leads to the question of why you should be split testing?

The answer is that if you're just guessing about what works, you're leaving money on the table.  

One simple change can easily mean the difference between explosive profits and not making a cent.

Continual improvement is a key to AdWords success.

Let's cover a few keys to split testing effectively:

• Start testing the most important parts first.  This might be your headline, introduction, price and other vital ingredients.  Then, move on to testing colors and minor formatting changes.
•  Make sure you get plenty of traffic.  The biggest mistake folks make when split testing is to see the initial results come-in and start on a new test.  Instead be patient and let the Website Optimizer tell you when the test is done.
•  Test small changes so you know precisely what's happening.  For instance, you might test a red headline versus a blue headline.  This way you know precisely what color is the most effective.  Alternatively, you might test one main appeal versus another.  

Finally, the last tip is to just get started.  It doesn't take long to set-up a test and then you've just got to let it run.  You don't have to check your tests everyday, unless you're getting a massive amount of traffic.  

The result is that you slowly discover what works and what's costing you money.

How Much Should You Be Spending on AdWords?

A challenge advertisers face when they begin a new campaign is deciding what their bid prices and ad budget should be.

If you bid too high, you can squander your budget.  If it's not high enough, then you're not giving your campaign a chance.

And, especially in today's economy, many business owners look at advertising as an expense -- where money goes-out and you're not sure if it's coming back-in.

What then is the best approach?

First, you shouldn't look at your ad budget as an expense.  There's absolutely no reason AdWords should not be accountable to you.

If you're not tracking conversions (which you likely should be), then you can track how long your visitors are staying at your sites and other visitor data to know if you're doing your job (using Google Analytics).

By tracking conversion data, over time, you discover precisely how much each keyword is worth to you.

You then know exactly how much you can afford per click.  Any money you do spend is profitable. 

Thus, your advertising budget may be limited only so far as you can monitor what's happening.

However, before this data comes-in, there are some guidelines of how much you should spend.

It's important to expect that not every ad you create or keyword you input will be profitable (though research can greatly increase those chances).

In addition, it may take several months to build-up account data for AdWords.  Part of how much Google charges you per-click is based on historic keyword data from your own and others' accounts.

This means that you should look at the beginning of your campaigns as a test period.  It's a time where you test, tweak, monitor, and continually improve.  Whatever results that come-in can almost always be improved upon.  You should assign your ad budget accordingly.

When it comes to specific costs per click, it depends on your market.  Some markets you might be able to get away with bare minimum bids.  Others may cost a lot more.  

In addition, sometimes it's advantageous to bid aggressively to grab top ad positions.  Other times it might be better to have middle or lower positions.

To decide what you should initially do, study the market.  Are searchers likely to do a lot of research (and thus dig-deep into results) or are they looking for an immediate solution?  Study what competitors are doing as well.

Eventually, you'll be able to lower your costs-per-click through effective ads, tight ad groups, and targeted landing pages.

PPC Revenue Up

Google, MSN, and Yahoo's revenue continue to climb in the 4th quarter of 2008. 

Some causes of this growth have been attributed to pre-budgeted holiday ad spending, more customers comparison shopping on the internet, and adjustments to where ads are served.

Here's what this means to you:

• You will likely see a decline in those advertisers that are cutting budgets, which may mean less competition for you, depending on your market.  Costs-per-clicks are already declining overall.
• The amount of comparison shopping searches or similar information searching queries may continue to be higher than in the past.  
• You will likely see the major search engines continue to lax their rules and standards.  This might mean showing your ads in places that are less targeted than you would normally want.

All in all, the changing landscape can be good news for you if you're monitoring your keywords, tracking conversions, and know your numbers. 

Interesting articles with more information on this news can be found at:

• http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28746257/ -- About all three major search engines  
• http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/01/this-just-in-yahoos-q4-will-be-strong.htm  -- About Yahoo. 
• http://www.clickz.com/3632472  -- About MSN 
• http://www.clickz.com/3632477  -- About Google.

The End of Google Print Ads?

Google recently announced that they are ending their Print Ads program on February 28th with the last ad placements for existing advertisers made on March 31st.

Google's announcement can be read at:

• http://google-tmads.blogspot.com/2009/01/turning-page-on-print-ads.html  

This announcement begs the question of where Google's future focus will be?  Will they continue to innovate in other mediums besides the web (including Radio, Television, Mobile) or will they look at more ways to monetize the web, the medium proven to work?

More information and analysis about this can be found at: 

• http://searchengineland.com/google-closes-the-presses-on-print-ads-16234   
• http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2009/01/google-closes-print-ads-still-a-one-trick-pony.html
• http://mashable.com/2009/01/20/google-print-ads-discontinued/ 
• http://www.ginside.com/2009/2682/goodbye-print-ads-adwords/ 

How to Choose Keywords That Make You Money.

Keywords seem simple enough.  Just pop-in the ones where you want your ads to show-up for when searchers' type them-in.

However, once you start running your campaigns, you realize there's a lot more to them.

Some that you thought should make a lot of money don't.  Ones you weren't sure about turn-out to be profitable.

Then, there are the ones that produce sales, but cost you more than they take in.  You've got to either toss or tweak it.

Over the years, I have noticed some common threads between what makes a good keyword and what doesn't.  As you go through keyword lists, you should keep these ideas we'll talk about below in mind when deciding how much to bid on a keyword and if you should even use it.

To generate keyword lists, there are a wide-number of tools.  Google's free tools keep improving:

• https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal -- Basic keyword tool used when setting-up your AdWords account. Use this tool as a starting point and the ones listed below to get further research.

•   http://www.google.com/sktool/  -- Fnd targeted keywords not in your account.
•   http://www.google.com/insights/search/ -- Uncover data about who's typing in your keywords.  

In addition, to Google, MSN also does an excellent job on developing useful and powerful keyword research tools.  Check them-out at:

•  http://adlab.msn.com/Keyword-Research.aspx     

An independent database that doesn't get its data from existing keyword tools is http://www.WordTracker.com.   You can find variations from real searchers not provided from Google. This is a paid tool, but has a free 7-day trial.  They also provide a free tool at: http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/.

There are also paid keyword software that use the databases above.  They make storing, analyzing, and organizing your keyword research a breeze.  There countless dozens of them, but here are a few:

• http://www.AdWordAnalyzer.com
• http://www.KeyWordsAnalyzer.com
• http://www.KeywordElite.com/

The main benefit of these paid software tools is that they look-up all of the keyword data for you.  This saves you a lot of time so that you're not manually typing all of your keywords into Google or other research tools.

Whatever brainstorming tools you use, it's important to realize it's just a first step.  You don't want to use every keyword you generate.  Right off the bat, you'll be able to see that some keyword just won't fly.

Here are some guidlines to look at when shrinking down your keyword list:

• If I were to talk to a searcher of this keyword one-on-one, would I have something to offer him or her?  If you don't know, look at what other listings come-up for the keyword and use the research tools listed above to analyze it further.  You should be able to look at a keyword and get an idea for what your ad might say to attract searchers' interests.
• Is the keyword too general or do I need to get more specific?  For instance, "Google" is not a good term to advertise this blog on.  "AdWords Strategies" likely is.  A less obvious too general keyword might be just "AdWords."  It's targeted, but it still might have too many untargeted searchers.
•  Are there competitors bidding on the keyword?  Be wary of keywords that don't have any competition or where there are no direct-competitors bidding on it.   Others have likely found-out the hard way that it's not profitable.  An exception might be if you came across a misspelling or good keyword variation that competitors have just not thought to advertise on.
• Does the keyword signal buying/commercial intent?  "Free AdWords Tutorials" is not a very targeted term if you're selling a course on using AdWords.  At the same time, you may not discount this term because those looking for free information might get frustrated with what's out there and be willing to buy.   This is important to consider because in just about every market, there are those looking for free information.  Don't necessarily avoid targeting them.  Just proceed with caution.  Look to see what information is already out there for each keyword.  Where do you fit in?
• Who exactly is typing this keyword in and what stage are they in the buying process?  For instance, before someone buys a Television, he or she might type-in "Television reviews."  After he or she is done, he or she may type in, "Best price on Sony 50' HD TV."  Consider what searchers are thinking as you go through your keywords.  Think about how your keywords are connected.

It used to be that you should try to include as many keywords as possible to create a successful campaign.  This is because you were bound to get a lot of cheap clicks.  However, Google is continually getting better (or tougher, depending at how you look at it) at weeding-out non-relevant advertisers.

This means that when you pick a keyword, you need to be willing to take the time to write a custom ad for it, put it in a tightly defined AdGroup, and, ideally, link to a relevant landing page.  In other words, quality over quantity is becoming more important.

At the same time, you should continue to look for overlooked keywords that your competitors have missed.  Don't stop your keyword research once your account is set-up.

As your campaigns progress, be sure that you're tracking conversions and your overall customer values. How much do you earn from each customer that comes through each keyword?  This is the final word on if a keyword is worth your time and money or if you should toss it.  In the beginning of a campaign be willing to test keywords you're not completely sure about.  The results may surprise you.

The Anatomy of a Dominant AdWords Campaign

Starting and running an AdWords campaign can be incredibly easy.  Just input your keywords and create an ad to get-up and running in 5 minutes from now.

However, doing the bare minimum only gets you so far.  If you're in a market with any type of competition, you get crushed.  There's only so much room for those that don't stand-out.

By not optimizing your campaigns, your costs-per-click rise, your ads fail to pull-in the right visitors, and you struggle to get your ads to show-up in the best places.

It's not a pretty picture.  If you've never had a successful campaign before, it may even cause you to give-up on AdWords.

But, it doesn't have to be this way.  There are simple steps you can do to optimize your campaign and rise to the top of the AdWords game.

Let's talk about what a professional campaign looks like:

• Has small, tight ad groups, ideally with one keyword in each.  Each keyword should have custom ads created for it.  This allows you to know precisely how each keyword is performing.  Your ads speak directly to the prospect typing them in.  Your ads make sense.  The result is higher click-thru-rates than everybody else's who do not take this step.
• Tests multiple ads for each of your ad groups to uncover the most effective ones.  AdWords changes and even if you have a killer ad right out of the gate, it might not stay there for long.
•  Uses the content network to its full power (if you're not using image ads right, then you're leaving a fortune on the table).  The content network is extremely profitable when you target the right sites with the right ads.
•  Tracks conversion rates and doesn't just make adjustments based on click-through-rates.  You need to be looking at the full picture of each ad and keyword.
•  Monitors what works and what doesn't in competitors ads so you don't have to spend your hard-earned money to find-out yourself.
• Pays close attention to what countries or areas your ads are appearing.  In many campaigns, it's a good idea to create new campaigns for every country.
•  Has lots of negative keywords and is constantly adding them.   

When you start doing all of these things on an on-going basis your profits skyrocket.  Your campaigns stand-out above and beyond the competition.

Of course, many people don't have time for all of this even though they know they should be doing it. You can overcome with this with a solid campaign manger.  If you're spending is at a decent level, then a good manager makes you a lot more money than he or she costs.  It's an easy investment.

From The Yellow Pages to The Google Pages.

How people find local businesses is changing.  No longer does everybody head straight to the yellow pages to find the local products and services they need.  More and more are heading straight to Google. 

In addition to searching on Google.com, there is also the rapidly evolving http://www.Maps.Google.com  

You can now see a visual of any building on a street level view.  Every detail about businesses is given in one place, including reviews, hours of operation, website links, hours of operation, and more.

At the same time, Google shows AdWords ads as your browse:

Imagine if you owned a local restaurant.  What would it be worth to you to get your ad in front of hungry customers looking for a place to eat?

This feature is just a small taste of what AdWords has to offer.  It's a one stop shop to do all of your local advertising from getting ads on local blogs to offline newspapers, local radio stations, mobile phones, and even television.

Simply put, if you target a local community, AdWords can be a mainstay source of new low-cost business.

Best of all, many local advertisers are afraid of using pay-per-click search engines.  Using it right can seem complicated.  If they do use it, they often only dabble in it.  They don't get the power of it.  

This means you as an advertiser can take over.  There are a wide-number of techniques you can implement to dominate the local results.

Here are just a few tips for targeting local areas:

• Look for local blogs or review sites to target with your ads on the content network,
• Pay close to the areas you're targeting.  You want your ads to only show-up for those likely to become a customer.
• Don't use your business name as a title. Come-up with unique headlines for each of your keywords.  For instance, a common search likely is for "Pizza restaurants."  If you bid on this term, be sure it's clear that this is what you offer and why you're the place to go to.  
• Look-up zip codes to include in your keywords.  For instance, if a user types in "23412 Restaurants," you can bid on this term. 
• Encourage customers to post reviews of your business on your free Google listing.        

You should also keep in mind that you don't have to have a local business to target a local area.  For example, if you're a florist and you ship anywhere, you can target local areas competitors ignore.

All in all, it's important to realize that how you're customers find you is changing.  Offline advertising will always be important, but you shouldn't make the mistake of underestimating what local AdWords advertising can do for you.

Test, tweak, experiment and track results to tap into this growing source of new business.

Grow Your AdWords Profits By Combining It With Google Analytics.

Success in AdWords is all about knowing your numbers.

If you're not already, you should have AdWord's conversion tracking tool installed.  

This tool allows you to know exactly what keywords are making you money and which ones aren't.

You know down to a cent how profitable a keyword is.  

If it produces, you may raise your bids.  If not, you can tweak it or delete the keyword.

However, knowing your conversion rates often is not enough to make wise management decisions.

You need more data.  For instance, do you know:

•  How long each of your visitors is remaining on your web pages?   
•  What keywords have the longest visitor retention rates? 
•  What web browsers your visitors are using (it's amazing how many web pages are not designed correctly for Google Chrome and Firefox)?
•   What pages are your visitors going to first?
•   What links are visitors clicking on? 

All of this data and more is given to you inside Google Analytics:

• http://www.google.com/analytics/     

You can then make informed money-making decisions because you have a more complete story of what's going on.  If a keyword has a low conversion rate, you get a better idea of why.  You then know if you should tweak your campaign or delete the keyword.

Of course, I should mention that some advertisers don't like analytics because they're skeptical of what AdWords is going to do with the information they gather about advertiser's sites.  After all, they know exactly what keywords are making you money, which ones aren't, and how much you're paying.

If you feel this way, this should not stop you from gathering detailed information.  There are a wide-number of other advanced analytics tools you can find on Google -- though, they may not be free.

Let's take a look at some of the most important features inside your Analytics account.  Once you log-in and install your code on your web pages, there are four option on the menu in the upper left corner:

The "Visitors" link gives you all of the data about the folks visiting your sites, such as what browsers they're using, how fast their internet connection is, and so on.

Traffic sources is all about where your visitors are coming from, including AdWords.  Let's click on the link:

You can then get more specific data about your keywords in this section, including how long visitors from each keyword stay on your page.

Above the "AdWords" link, you can see the "Keywords" tab where you get data on what keywords folks are finding you with, including those from free organic listings.  Pay attention to these to help determine good negative keywords to add to your campaign.

Next, the Content link gives you all of the data about your pages.  You can see what pages are the most popular, how long visitors are staying on each, what percentages are leaving your site from each page and with the "Site overlay" you can see what links are getting clicked on.

Finally, there is the Goal link.  You can track how your pages are converting from not just your pay-per-click traffic, but all traffic.  Often what is or is not working with other traffic generation techniques can be applied to managing your pay-per-click campaigns.

Simply put, the information you get from an analytics tool gives you valuable data you need to give your campaigns an edge for more profitable traffic than everyone else.

How to Find Negative Keywords

When you input a normal broad match keyword into Google, buyer beware.  It's important to always be aware that your ad may show for a wide-range of unintended searches.  

Most of the time it doesn't matter.  It's still worth it to bid on broad match keywords because the targeted traffic pays for the untargeted.

However, you can increase the profitability of your keywords by using the power of negative keywords.  

If you're not familiar with them, negative keywords are those keywords you don't want your ads to show-up for.  You input them into an account by putting a "-" before your chosen keyword.

For instance, you may bid on the term "traffic" as in "website traffic."  However, you don't want your ad to show-up for "Highway traffic," "Traffic cameras," or driving related keywords.

By using these negative keywords your click-through-rates skyrocket (your ad only shows-up for those interested in it) and your cost-per-click shrinks.

Of course, you may be aware of this.  But, you still struggle to come-up with good negative keywords. You don't want to exclude traffic that could be profitable and you don't want to waste your money either.

Before you start any campaign, the first technique to come-up with on-target negative keywords is to use any keyword research tool, such as Google's at:

• https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal      

Let's say we're selling a book on how to generate traffic to your website.  Let's take a look at the very general keyword "traffic:"

  

Hit "Get keyword ideas."

Anything related to "Website traffic" is not found.  So, we would not likely bid on this term.  It's too untargeted.  However, we might take some of these keywords and add them to our negative keyword list.

We don't want our ads to show-up for anything related to driving traffic.  For instance, "traffic saftey website" or a similar search might potentially show our ad if we did not use negative keywords.

Let's take a look at a more targeted term "Website traffic" where we do want our ad to show for: 

Here, we might add "Website traffic hits" as a negative keyword because it appears to be a phrase those willing to invest in a course on website traffic generation would not type-in.  This term is more for those looking for low cost instant and massive "quick fix."  Most folks likely to buy a course don't want just hits.

Another negative keyword might be "website traffic analysis."  Folks typing this in are looking for an analytics tool they can install on their website.

Are you starting to see how this is done?  For further information about a keyword, look at the competition data (the green bar to the right).  Low competition means other advertisers may have already found out that the keyword is not profitable.

You can also search the actual term and see what listings pop-up.  See if they're related to your product or service.

A neat tool provided by MSN that gives you an idea of whether a keyword has those likely to buy can also be found at:

• http://adlab.msn.com/Online-Commercial-Intention/Default.aspx 

Just type a keyword into this tool and it gives you a basic idea of how many folks are likely to buy.  Keep in mind that just because a keyword does not have a lot of buyers, does not mean it's profitable to bid on. The buyers may make-up for the non-buyers.  Every part of AdWords success is about tracking or knowing your numbers.

After you've researched your general keywords, you might go on to input each of your top keywords into the keyword research tool and look for untargeted search phrases.

This is a key part to starting your campaign off right.

As the campaign runs, you should be continually looking for new untargeted keywords.  One strategy is if you find-out a keyword is not profitable through tracking, you may not just delete it, but also add it as a negative keyword.  

You should also have some sort of tracking software, such as Google Analytics or a similar tool.  These tools then have an area where you can see what search phrases folks found you with.  If you see an unrelated search query, add it as a negative keyword.  

One word of caution is that you want to make sure that when you add negative keywords that it is really untargeted.  Test advertising on the keyword and tracking conversion rates if you need to.

By continually adding negative keywords you gain an unbeatable age new competitors can't match. Most won't put in the effort and the rest just don't have the data yet to uncover what their negative keywords should be.