AdWords: The A B Cs of Success

Success with AdWords boiled down to A B C

A) Always select keywords that are pertinent to your product or service. You may be tempted to get keywords at random from a search engine database that could be relative to your topic just because they are in the top 5. Do Not Do That! All of your energies should be targeted directly at your prospective clients don't select aimless keywords.

B) Before you finalize your keywords be sure that they meet the qualifications. Is it broad enough that it could be used by the average consumer as they search? At the same time, is it sufficiently specific that it won't attract an abundance of dead end leads? You have to pay for those clicks whether they bring you money or not. This is pay-per-click. Once you have made the requisite efforts, and you have a high click through rate, if you are not converting those to sales you will speedily see your advertising dollars flowing down the drain.

C) Carefully consider the amount of money you are willing to bid for a keyword. Search engines are very intelligent; they know that they are going to make the most amount of profit for themselves from the ads whose creators are willing to pay the greatest sums per click. This means that these ads are going to be the ones that turn up at the top of the "Sponsored links" and are going to be the ones who receive the most visibility. Visibility equals traffic, which in a Utopian society would be great for both of you; you place the highest bid on a keyword, the search engine puts the keyword on top of the list and voila! instant profit for both of you.

Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Being at the top of the list won't do you much good if your advertising budget won't stretch far enough to allow you to make the sales needed to recoup your investment. A balance is needed, and it can be a hard one to find.

D) Do not scrimp on follow through. Carefully observe you ads after your campaign is launched to gauge the quantity of business that they generate. Vigilant tweaking is required to cut back on problems and keep your campaigns focused on the right group to maximize profits generated by your advertising expenditures.

These are the key components of any advertising campaign, and if the savvy advertiser takes the time to learn these lessons well the profits promised by the hundreds of ads claiming that AdWords is the key to internet marketing success may soon be realized.