Growing your business with AdWords

AdWords is an automated auction. You write your ads and choose relevant keywords (a keyword is the search term –
word or phrase – that a person searching on Google types in which will then trigger your ad). Then, a prospective customer
searches and all the ads with keywords related to their search query are put into an auction, including yours.
The top ads will appear to your potential customer under the heading 'Sponsored Links', on the right-hand side or above
Google's search results. An interested customer will click on your ad and be directed to your website.
Before we get in to the details of your account here's a quick reminder of the AdWords essentials.

As well as showing to people searching on Google, your ads can also appear on relevant websites in the content network. When you advertise on the content network, a diverse network of millions of websites, your ads are shown beside website content that is relevant to your customers. You can choose sites you want to appear on or let us match your ads to relevant websites.

How do Google match your ads?

1. By scanning the millions of pages on the web, Google's contextual targeting technology analyses the content of different web pages to determine what the site is about.

2. Then, by looking at the keywords and ad text in your campaign, we identify the main concept behind your advertising message.

3. Google system then automatically places the most relevant ads with the most relevant pages, so your ads show to interested users.

The most important thing to think about when looking at your AdWords account is quality.
Google rewards relevant, quality advertising with a
higher position on the search page and lower costs, so
making sure your ads are high quality is really important

So, what do we mean by quality?

Think about how you search... when you type in a search term you want to see an ad that offers the product or service you're looking for. When you click on that ad you want to be taken directly to the product/ service page for more information. All users are the same. They want to find what they're looking for quickly and simply and if they do they're more likely to be interested in what they find and make a purchase or enquiry.

This is the basis of how AdWords works: you create high-quality, relevant ads that are useful to those people searching for your products and the Google system will reward you with a higher position on the page and lower costs.

Get the basics right Account structure

Take a fresh look at your account
Structuring your account effectively can have a dramatic
impact on the success of your AdWords campaigns.
A little organisation will make it much easier to create quality
ads. It'll also help you determine what's providing value so
you can build on your most successful campaigns and edit
those that aren't working as well.

Get to grips with the essentials

 

Your AdWords account is made up of three levels:
account, campaign and ad group.

Your AdWords account is structured to help you create highly targeted advertising. Your account is split into campaigns
and each campaign into ad groups. You can think of these as categories and subcategories. Each campaign should
focus on a specific product range or area of your business and then each ad group should be even more specific and focus on
a subcategory of the main campaign topic. For example if you are a garden centre you could have a campaign focused on roses
and then the ad groups (or subcategories) within that campaign could be different types of roses such as scented roses,
climbing roses etc. Take inspiration from the structure of your
website when deciding what campaigns and ad groups to create. Look at how you've structured your site and reflect this in your AdWords account. A well structured account should not only
provide you with better results it will also make your advertising easy to manage!

Examples and ideas you can implement

 

Before taking you through how you can improve your own account
structure, lets take a look at an example of a well structured account.
This example shows what an account could look like for a Garden Centre.
Campaign 1: Seeds
Ad group 1: Flower seeds
Ad group 2: Grass seeds
Ad group 3: Vegetable seeds
Campaign 2: Roses
Ad group 1: Climbing roses
Ad group 2: Bush roses
Ad group 3: Scented roses
Campaign 3: Outdoor buildings
Ad group 1: Sheds
Ad group 2: Summerhouses
Ad group 3: Conservatories

Tips for creating a winning account structure

 

A well managed account is a successful account.
Implement our tips below to ensure your campaigns thrive.
Stick to one theme per campaign. We recommend you structure
your AdWords account similar to the structure of your website, i.e.
separate your campaigns by the themes or product lines your website is divided into.
Give each campaign an appropriate name. Make sure you can identify your campaigns easily. This will make tracking and editing
your campaigns much simpler. Split each campaign into ad groups. Ad groups let you segment your campaigns into multiple parts to achieve even greater focus and simplicity.
Just like campaigns, each ad group should have one common theme.
Focus on a single product or service that you offer in each ad group. This will make it simple to create focused, effective keywords and ads. For example, a garden centre could have a campaign with the theme of "Seeds", an ad group in that campaign might be "Flower seeds". Try to aim for at least three ad groups per campaign. The number of ad groups you need will vary depending on the size
of your product offering and business but aiming for a minimum of three will ensure that each ad group is tightly themed and will help
you to write specific ads targeted to your customers.

Keywords

 

Reach the right customers
Keywords are the roots of your ad campaign. They set the entire advertising process in motion. If your potential customers are searching for your product or service, they'll find you more quickly if you've chosen the right keywords. You should think about your keywords in the same way you have structured your campaigns and ad groups.
Each of your ad groups should contain tightly themed keywords. A small group of carefully targeted keywords are far better than a large group of un-targeted keywords.
For example, an ad group with the theme of climbing roses should only contain keywords specifically related to climbing roses rather than a large group of keywords related to flowers or roses in general. There is no one-size fits all answer but try to aim for between 5 and 50 keywords in each ad group.
Theming your keyword groups in this way will help you when writing your ads and, most importantly of all, make your advertising high quality — allowing your customers to find you easily.

Get to grips with the essentials

 

When picking your keywords you have the choice to use different matching options. These options give you further control over when your ads should show. To reach the right customers we recommend that you focus your campaigns using broad match keywords
along with negative match where needed.
Broad Match reaches the most users by showing your ad whenever your keyword, or a relevant variation of your keyword, is searched for. For instance if your keyword is red roses, it will trigger your ad on searches such as red roses, red and pink roses or roses coloured red. This is the default option for keywords. Negative Match prevents your ad from showing when a word or phrase you specify is searched for. If you have red roses as a keyword and specify synthetic as a negative match your ad won't show on search terms such as synthetic red roses. To add negative keywords go to the "Keywords" tab. Scroll down to the negative keyword section, click on the plus sign and add your negative keywords in the box.
If you would like to try more advanced options then there are two
further keyword options which can be used. We only recommend
you use these if you are confident with monitoring the success of
your campaign and are able to assess keyword performance. For
more information search for "keyword matching options" in the
AdWords Help Centre.

Examples and ideas you can implement

 

Lets look at a 3 step example of how you might approach creating your own keywords. In this example the
campaign is roses and each ad group is a type of rose.
1. Begin by listing all relevant keywords for a campaign.
roses, climbing roses, climbing rose, fragrant climbing roses, rose plants, buy bush roses, rose bush, rose bushes,
best roses, bush rose sale, shrub roses, luxury red bush roses, hardy climbing roses, cheap roses,
climbing rose varieties, rambling roses, climbing roses, spring roses
2. Next split your keywords into your themed ad groups, with relevant ad texts.

3. Review and refine.
Reviewing the keywords above we have identified 5 we would like to refine:
(1) Roses may be too generic to be a good keyword.
(2) Make sure you don't use the same keyword in multiple ad groups within the same campaign. (Our system interprets this as increased competition for this keyword, resulting in a higher cost-per-click (CPC) for it).
(3) Negative match keywords like delivered and free prevent your ad from showing for searches that contain those keywords. This business doesn't offer delivery or free products so they should include these as negative keywords.
(4) Keywords like best roses and cheap roses don't give enough details about the product or products
being offered.
(5) Keywords like luxury red bush roses may be too specific to be effective.

Tips for choosing the right keywords for your business

 

Make sure your keywords are right for your business. Use our tips below to fine tune your keyword lists.

Keywords
Match your keywords to your ad text. Each keyword should match the ad text that it triggers when a potential customer searches on Google. To do this, group all the keywords relating to a particular product or service into a specific ad group. You can then create
an ad that matches these keywords so that whatever a user searches for, they see an ad that is very relevant to their search.
Think like your customers. How might your customers search for
your product or service? Generally the best keywords tend to be 2-3 words long. Try out our keyword tool. Stuck for keyword ideas?
The keyword tool, found within your account, provides suggestions for new keywords and can also help identify possible negative keywords. Use negative keywords. Prevent your ad from showing on a search which is not relevant for your business. For example if you sell lawnmowers you may not want your ad to show if a user searches for Lawnmower repairs so specify repairs as a negative keyword. Regularly review your keywords. Through regular reviews you can remove keywords which are not providing value and learn from the success of your top performing keywords.

Ads 

Write ads to get your customers clicking
Your customers choose to go to your website over your competitors' based solely on what they see in your ads. If your ads don't grab their attention, you could be missing out on valuable sales.
To get the best results your ads should directly relate to your keywords.
This means that when a potential customer searches for your product they see a very relevant ad and will visit your site.
Once you have organised your account and have your keywords grouped into ad groups your ads should be easy to write.

Get to grips with the essentials

 

AdWords makes it really easy for you to test out your messaging and see which ads work for your customers. Try testing different ads in each ad group, you may be surprised at what is the most successful.
To test your messaging, write three or four variations of the same ad text in each ad group (as shown below). These ads will all run from the same set of keywords. If you have more than one ad in each ad group AdWords will rotate which of your ads is shown,
at no additional cost.
Allow these ad variations to run for a while. Then check your clicks. The ads with the highest clickthrough rates (CTR) are the ads users find to be the most relevant to their search. Over time you will learn what works for your business and you can edit your ads accordingly.