Introduction
According to Alexa.com and other sources, Google.com is currently the most popular search engine with Ask Jeeves at second and Altavista at third. The great part is there are two main advertising companies that represent all the major search engines: Google Adwords(Google.com) and Overture.com. Both of them are essentially competitor cost per click advertising mediums, which interface into the most popular search engines on the internet. Overture covers Yahoo!, MSN, Altavista, CNN and Infospace. Google Adwords, on the the other hand, covers Google, America Online, Netscape, Earthlink, Compuserve and more. So, working with these two companies will cover 90% of all search traffic on the internet, making it easy for you to manage your advertising without having to deal with several companies.
If you truly want to get to the top of the search engine rankings, it is easier to pay to get there, rather than spending endless hours trying to make the right meta tag and obtaining the most links from other websites. In other words, nothing is free. Either you are going to work hard to get to the top or you are going to pay money for it. I would suggest the latter, as it is an easier feet. Essentially, that is what we are going to discuss in this article.
If you have not done so, please set up an account with both Google Adwords and Overture.com. This way, you can follow the article below and apply it to your accounts.
Also, for an edge over other sellers and websites on msn, google, yahoo and other search engines, check out these two programs: The Ultimate Search Engine Loophole and How to Get Free Google Ads
Keyword Campaign Structure
Starting with the right foundation is probably the most important thing you will do in your keyword campaign. For, if your foundation is weak, everything you build on it will be for nought. That is why it is important not to hurry into doing an adword campaign, as you might just have to redo the whole thing later. So, in this article, we will tell you how to build a good foundation and how to build on top of that foundation.
Restrictions are everything when it comes to search engine advertising. First thing to consider is "Who is your Audience?" Do you want to advertise to people in Asia, or are your customers closer to home? You could save yourself a lot of money at the outset just by restricting the campaign to the exact regions you want to sell to. Second, how much do you want to spend a day? You can set a daily budget limit in both Overture and Google Adwords. For some keyword campaigns, this is going to be very important, as you might be really pushing a popular topic. But, it is also possible, you might want to set your daily spending limit really high, as your search terms might not be that often used. Generally, even if you set it to something as high as $100 a day, it never goes there. It may only go to $5 a day, even though you have it set to $100 a day. What I suggest is to start with a small amount a day and slowly raise it, seeing what results you get. This way, you will by trial and error figure out what to set the limit at.
Understanding the hierarchy of "Campaigns" and "Groups": Essentially, your "Account" is at the top and under that is one or more "Campaigns". Then, you have one or more "Ad Groups" within each "Campaign". Campaigns are generally for different product/service groups. Ad Groups are for various similar products/services. For instance, you might have Bible Software as one Campaign and TVs as another campaign. Within the TV Campaign, you could have Ad Groups for Plasma TVs, HDTV and Standard TV.
When using either Overture.com or Google Adwords, you must bid a certain CPC(Cost Per Click) for each keyword phrase you develop. The trick is to find the keyword phrases few others have found. This keeps the bid price low and the placement high. A good example of a bad keyword phrase is the term "MLM". Recently, I checked what the average bid was for "MLM" on Google Adwords and it was insanely high, something like a dollar or more. Generally, anything over $0.30 is probably not worth pursuing, especially when you are just starting out with a new website. Of course, if you get your website finely tuned and are making killer sales, then it might be worth while to pursue something over $0.30 per click, but I can tell you know, most who are paying over $0.30 a click simply do not know what they are doing. Why be a lemming and throw your money out the window? Wouldn't it be better to just find a similar term or a slightly different phrase that places you high for $0.10? Remember, I mentioned "MLM" being over a dollar on Google Adwords. The term "Marketing", on the other hand, was remarkably low. A great example of a similar keyword to MLM, yet probably costs little is "Level Marketing". Something like this could save you $0.80 per click and it only took me 30 seconds to think of it! Now, ask yourself which one is really worth its cost, "MLM" or "Level Marketing"? I am willing to wager that most who are putting their $1.00 into one MLM click are not making anything off their advertising. Especially in the MLM community, you often find those who think they are going to make millions by jumping into risk, but often they forget to bring their brains. It is not guts that makes you millions. Rather, it is calculated clever marketing strategies that gets you there. Robert Kiyosaki put it best, "The last thing you do is spend your money." So, first you do all the research, build your "exit strategy" and then spend your money. That way, you minimize risk into essentially nothing.
Understanding Keywords
Here is the true secret to making very cost effective highly placed keyword searches. Take the example I gave before between "MLM" and "Level Marketing". MLM is obviously not cost effective, but doing just a little brainstorming, I came up with "Level Marketing". Now, to perfect the keyword phrase "Level Marketing", you just do a search on Google of "Level Marketing" and note all the search results that do not relate to Multi-Level Marketing and find words within each one that is totally non-related to Multi Level Marketing and make them "Negative Keyword Phrases" within your Ad Group. A "Negative Keyword Phrase" is a word or phrase you do not want to be in any of the search results. A couple examples would be "-lies" or "-scam" as you do not want those who are searching against Multi Level Marketing to see your ad and click on it. For instance, lets say there is a guy who is against Multi Level marketing. He types in Google "Multi level marketing scams". Ask yourself, "Do I want this guy to see my ad?" Of course not! He would be a waste of your money if you are trying to get those who are interested in Multi-Level Marketing. So, you put "-lies" and "-scams" within your keywords to keep them from seeing your ads.
What's so darn funny is that few do the above. I just checked and only TWO companies caught onto the term "Level Marketing". That is so hilarious! Imagine, all those people spending a $1 or more for "MLM" when all they had to do was brainstorm for 30 seconds and they could have thought of something like "Level Marketing" and saved themselves a TON of money. So, using your MIND and out thinking your competitors is not actually that difficult. Further, you can rest assured that most of your competitors are lazy. I can vouch for this, as I have watched other online sellers and most stop thinking after they put up their websites or auctions. Its as if they put their thinking into it beforehand a little and then completely quit thereafter. The most critical thing to realize is that you are to continually think of ways to improve your sales strategies. If you do this, you WILL succeed. People are creatures of habit, so make sure you develop the good habit of always improving your strategies, while your competitors become lazy and sloppy.
Both Overture.com and Google Adwords use complex mathematical algorithms to weigh which Ad Groups get more attention and which keywords get more attention. So, it is possible to increase your keyword profibility by moving keywords form one Ad Group to another. Sometimes, a certain keyword phrase will do good immediately and end up at the top and be highlighted and used more by Google. But, if you know that you have another keyword phrase that is better, the Google Algorithm might not see this and not put much stock in it. Thats when you move that keyword to another Ad Group so it will not have the hinderance from the other good keyword phrase. Many do not know this trick either, but it can work greatly to your advantage and could easily double/triple your sales.
Yes, amazingly, there is not much more to it. Once you understand these three principles I presented here and start applying them to your adwords, you will discover that using your mind power first and your advertising dollar second will pay you money over and over. I am amazed daily how simple thought brings me more and more wealth. The process is learning to think different. We are taught implicitly that money is real and a solid object, but really, money is an idea. It is the competition of ideas that brings in the wealth online.
Ways to Improve Your Ad
When using Overture and Google AdWords Services, you are actually putting a small text ad that people see, rather than the standard search results. For instance, if you do a search on Google, you will be listed on the right side, rather than the standard column of search results. So, instead of them seeing the title of your homepage, they are seeing a small text ad you created. Now, the trick is to make a killer text ad. This is what we shall discuss here.
One of the best ways to do this is by generating several different text ads, all varying a decent amount in what they say. Then, you put all of these different text ads within the specified Ad Group you made them for. From here, Google will rotate them and use them randomly and will report how well each different ad text copy set is doing. Wait a few days to a week to get a good idea which ones are doing the best and alter the ones that are not performing well. Also, in your mind, try to discover what it is about the successful ads that made them successful. This can help you when changing the poorly performing text ad copy sets. Through this trial and error, you can improve your ad copy's effectiveness, which will increase your click through rate. Increasing the click through rate can push you up to higher rankings without you having to spend anymore money. One of the great features that Google Adwords and Overture have.
Lowering your Costs
Once you have effective keywords and ad copy, you can check to see if lowering your bid will essentially keep your click through the same or change it. You can do this through their estimation tool. If it shows it staying essentially at the same level with the lower bid, change it and monitor it for the next few days to see if it did effect in negatively or not. This is one way you can lower some of your costs.
Another way to lower your costs is to find Ad Groups or keywords that are getting the click throughs but no sales. Generally, it is wise to check this over a month or two run, as sales don't generally come in mass numbers when starting with a new website. If certain keywords seem to be doing nothing except getting tons of click throughs, it might be worthwhile to cancel some of them or limit them through lowering the budget. I did this recently on one of my Ad Groups as it would consistantly get killer clicks, but it was not getting the sales. I was able in turn to get more focus on the Ad Group that did generate the sales.
Increasing Profits
Once you have found certain keywords that seem to "bring home the bacon" in the form of sales, you should try to increase that keywords visibility, budget, or CPC. Sometimes, it is wise to just put it in its own Ad Group altogether, as other keywords might be hindering it from getting the audience it deserves. Increasing the CPC can also do this as it raises its rank a bit. Even one placement up will increase your click throughs as items that are higher up on any webpage generally get clicked on far more than items farther down the page. At any rate, you should try each of these techniques to see which will give your good keywords more audience. The idea is that if they are making the sales for you and you amplify its clicks, it will proportionally amplify your sales.
