Ok, so as promised I am going to reveal some of my secrets as to how to earn extra cash online by using AdWords strategies. If you are interested in using AdWords then this post is for you. This is just what has worked for me. I am by no means an expert at using AdWords but I am not a novice at all either. I apologize for the wait but personal circumstances prevented me from posting. For this post I am assuming that you have read my last post and know how to set up an AdWords account and the basics of AdWords. Let’s start with the basics. First things first there are certain terms you should know when using AdWords.
Let’s take a look below at some of the terms you see when using AdWords:
AdWords Terms:
Impressions - number of times your ad is shown.
CTR (Click Through Rate) - Number of times your ad is clicked in relation to the number of impressions you’ve had. 3% or better is good.
Page Position - Where you add ranks on the page when it is show on the search network. The higher the better obviously. Ideally 1-3 Positions.
CPC (Cost Per Click) -Average cost you are paying per click.
Google AdWords Content Network - network of Google’s partner sites and other websites that Google advertises there AdWord or Adsense sites on. You do NOT want to use this when first starting out! Make sure that you turn it off by un checking the box in your AdWords campaign settings menu.
Placements- What sites you specify on the content network for Google to advertise on.
Google AdWords Search Network- Google’s keyword search network. Your AdWords ad appears when people search for certain keywords that you choose. This is what we will be focusing on.
Ad Groups- Groups of ads in an AdWords Ad campaign
AdWords Expectations
I’ve learned from experts. And what I’ve learned is that AdWords is difficult. Now I’ve had some campaigns with great click through rates and no sales. I’ve had some with low click through rates and great sales. If you are going to use AdWords and you do not have a lot of money or time then I would suggest you use other methods free methods of advertising to start out such as forum marketing or article marketing. They are really great ways to earn extra cash on the internet for free. I will cover them more in future post. I’m not saying this to discourage you from using AdWords, I am only trying to set some realistic expectations when using AdWords advertising. With that being said lets get started with Tracking.
Tracking AdWords Performance
Why Get started with tracking? Because you need stats to improve your performance. Let’s say you are getting hits from Panama. You might want to focus on targeting more on Panama or only on Panama exclusively. In addition it not only tells you if where your hits come from tracking also tells you what key words your visitors used, how long they stayed on your page, what search engine they came from what exit links they choose and so forth. You can only imagine the power of tracking and why it is so important to use. There is so much information for you to use to your advantage that not using tracking would be crazy. I use statcounter.com to track my stats but there are plenty of other sources you can use. Stat counter is free to use and the set up is fast (less than 5 minutes).
Your AdWords ROI
On average or at worst (depending on the amount of profit from each sale) you want 1 sale out of 100 clicks Or Not to exceed price of Item you are selling. If you’re selling a 39 dollar item you don’t want to spend 45 dollars to make a sale... Additionally it takes the same amount of clicks to sell a large commission as it does to make a small one. Set your own goals. Use common sense. Common sense will tell you that you want to spend as little as possible to make a sale. You want your ROI (Return On Investment) to be as high as possible.
Formula for ROI - If you paid $100.00 for clicks and you made 150 then your ROI is 150% (150 / 100 = 1.5%). What you made Divided by What you paid = ROI.
Choosing Your AdWords Ads Keywords
You key words are one of the most important categories to discuss when using AdWords. When choosing key words you want to have at least 200 to 400 to start with. Some people have use up to 5000. It’s personal preference in my opinion. You want to have at least 200 to 400 to start with because you are probably are not going to use all of them or may want to use different some of the key words for different ad groups. You want to start with the product name and then also use key words that are directly related to the product. If your advertising a product related to AdWords then you may want to use PPC, Pay Per Click, PPC advertising, Pay Per Click advertising AdWords etc. as some of your keywords. If your ad is not showing once you’ve chose your key words you would want to start your and then increase your bids as necessary. Never start with the max bid. Start at .10 and move up for there. This is a basic AdWords strategy where you start with low bids and then Increase the bids as needed. I’ve had key words that were starting at 3 or 4 dollars for the starting bid that I’ve got at .35 per click.
AdWords Ad Groups
When you create your first AdWords campaign you will be creating an ad group. You can have multiple ad groups for each campaign. Why? Because you want each one of your ads to show as much as possible. Additionally you can have different variations of ads for each ad group. If you have one ad group with 10 variations of the same ad then Google will rotate those ads and show the best performing (unless you choose not to). You may be saying well this is what I want. Yes, but you can get there a lot faster by creating a different ad group. You may have multiple landing pages that you want to test. Again this is where you would create another ad group. The fewer ads you have per ad groups the more impressions you will get per ad. Make sense? You want to have at least 25 – 40 keywords per ad group and not more than 2 to 4 variations of ads for each ad group. From here you will start to scale down and delete non performing or poor performing keywords and ads as necessary. This is your basic AdWords strategy.
AdWords Testing Strategy
Ok this is kind of my own strategy but I probably am not the one who first came up it, however I have not seen it anywhere else yet. When using the AdWords test strategy You pick your niche. If you don’t know how to find one then check out my post on How To Find a Niche. After you’ve found a niche you advertise with AdWords. Not with the intention to make a sale but with the intention of gathering data to see what is hot! See what phrases, keywords etc. that people are using for your niche. You must use tracking like statcounter.com, however to find this information. Then you can use those keywords to build a site and use SEO (search engine optimization) to get to the first page of Google (this is easier than it sounds; I’ll cover in another post as well) for that niche!
The High to Low AdWords Strategy
I have to confess I have not tried this AdWords strategy but I can tell you how it works in theory. The High to Low AdWords Strategy is were you would start with the highest bids possible (maybe even higher then the highest bid) and then work your way down to below biding price. Why would some one want to do that? Well in “theory” this is supposed to do three things. For one it is supposed to get you the exact keywords you want. Second it should put you in the first spot as far as AdWords Page position is concerned. Additionally it is supposed to drive out the competition supposedly because it will drive up the cost of the bid causing your competitor to drop out of the competition assuming that he doesn’t have the money to compete with you. Obviously this is a strategy to try for those that have money; hence the reason I have not tried this strategy yet. J
AdWords Quality Score
Oh yeah, last but not least is the AdWords Quality score. The AdWords quality score is based on a number of different factors. But the most important would be relevance. Your AdWords Ad, Your Ad title, Your Display URL, The Destination URL, your landing page title and content MUST be Relevant! I repeat Your AdWords Ads and everything else must be RELAVANT! For example If your are selling a book, let’s call it “AdWords Strategies” for the sake of argument, then obviously the book is about AdWords strategies. You don’t want to select "earn extra cash" as one of your key words. You would want to choose AdWords, AdWords Strategies, PPC Strategies, How to use AdWords, How to be successful using AdWords, AdWords Success, earn extra cash with AdWords, earn cash with AdWords, AdWords e-book, Make money with AdWords, help with AdWords, AdWords Help, AdWords Advertising, AdWords Marketing, etc.. I think you get the point. AdWords is about relevance. Again I can’t stress this enough. You want to have the word “AdWords” as much as possible in the AdWords Ad headline and body, the display and destination URL and the Headline and body of the Landing page. This is probably the most important thing you will need when using AdWords Strategy. Glad I didn’t forget that.
P.S. One more thing you can try to improve your AdWords Quality Score is to Use the button that says Opportunities for Improvement when you first click on a campaign you have already created. It Helps!
Quick update: If your serious in taking your AdWords Campaigns to the next level you can see where I learned most of my AdWords strategies from at my AdWords Strategies Product Review Blog.
That's it for now. I'll have a product review site for AdWords Related tools, ebooks etc... I'll link it to my blog when it's done for those that may be interested. Make sure to come back for my next post. Free Methods of Advertising. That’s it for AdWords Strategies.
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