Many people using Google AdWords are often disappointed that they spend a lot of money, get lots of visitors to their website but don't get many conversions. In my experience, there are 5 major mistakes that people make when starting out on their AdWords campaigns:
1. Not Doing Keyword Research
You need to be conducting thorough keyword research before you even begin your AdWords campaign. If you don't know what people are searching for, how will you tailor your ads to meet their needs? Google's keyword tool is great - you can find it at googleeasysearch.com.
Targeting the right keywords is integral to your AdWords Campaign. The best keywords for AdWords are those that aren't too competitive, don't cost too much and are relevant to your business. It might be tempting to bid on keywords that are cheap and get a lot of traffic but unless they are relevant, the user either won't pay any attention to your ad, or if they do click through, they will most likely bounce straight off. A bounce occurs when a website visitor only views a single page on a website, that is, the visitor leaves a site without visiting any other pages.
2. Not Targeting Ads and Campaigns
Once you've got your keywords that are relevant to your industry, aren't too competitive and don't cost the earth to bid on, you need to divide them up into categories for different Ad Groups.
For example, if you are selling organic clothing, you could have an organic shirt category, an organic jumper and organic hat category. This way, you can write ads that target your specific keywords. A user is less likely to click on your ad if it is for organic jumpers and they are looking for an organic hat.
When you come to create your Ad Groups, you can then write an advert that is relevant to all of your keywords from one category.
3. Only Running One Advert Per Ad Group
In your Ad Groups, you have the opportunity to run several ads at the same time. In the Ad Group settings, you can choose to rotate them evenly, showing one the same amount of times as the others. Or you can choose to show the ads with the higher click through rates more often.
By rotating your ads, and seeing which have the highest click through rates, you can learn which ads work and which don't. Keep changing your adverts all the time and experiment with different wordings.
4. Ads that don't stand out
Every day, we are subject to thousands of advertisements; on the television, on the radio and on the internet. Yours need to stand out. Take time to think about what your potential customers wants to read. What will compel them to take action?
Even though you have a limited amount of characters, make sure to include what makes you different. Is it that you're cheaper? More eco friendly? Or a friendlier service? If you don't give your reader a reason to click on your advert above others, they won't.
5. Leaving The Campaign To Run
An effective AdWords campaign needs to be updated regularly. Monitor your click through rate - which ads are working and which are not? As new keywords pop into your head, check them out to see what the traffic is like. Leaving your AdWords campaign to run might bring you enough clicks but by changing your campaign all the time, you will open your website up to more and more visitors.
The main point to remember is to be strategic. Don't just throw lots of keywords at one campaign and see what sticks. By targeting your adverts and keywords, the user will find what they are looking for by clicking to your website. Relevance is key.
