How to Beat Your Rivals on Google AdWords

Google AdWords is a great tool for driving traffic to your site; but you need to know how to make the most of the system. Many people just find they end up spending loads of money bidding on super-competitive keywords and sooner or later their ads get disabled for under-performing. While your competitors seem to be getting the top spot time and time again! Want to know how to beat them? Read on..

1. Always specify negative keywords. For example, if your product requires payment, include -free as a negative keyword; that way your ad won?t be shown to people who include free in their search and you won?t have to pay for visitors who have no intention of spending any money!

2. Bid on AS MANY relevant keywords as possible. If you?re only bidding on a dozen keywords then you?re probably bidding on the same ones as all your rivals and you?ll end up having to pay too much per visitor. If you can think of interesting new combinations of keywords that none of your rivals are bidding on, you?ll be able to get high up the results very cheaply. Of course, these less common keywords get searched for less often and will therefore bring in less visitors, but because you?re paying less, these visitors are potentially more profitable.

3. Try to split your keywords into groups of similar words and then create a separate campaign for each group. In each campaign you can reword your ads so that they are exactly relevant to those keywords. This will dramatically improve the click-through rate. If you Ad contains any of the exact words which the person searched for, then it makes those words bold, and they are more likely to be clicked on. So make sure that each campaign?s advert is very closely relevant to the keywords/phrases you bid on.

4. The higher your click-through rate (CTR), the higher you ad will be shown. Even if you are bidding less money than the person above you, if your ad gets a higher CTR Google will show yours higher. If your ad does not get at least 0.5% CTR, google will disable your ad; so do not bid on keywords that are not directly relevant to your adverts!!

5. For every keyword or phrase you bid on, you should also bid on ?keyword? and [keyword]. Putting the keyword or phrase into ?inverted commas? means that your ad will show any time someone searches for that word/phrase as part of a search with other terms included, putting it in [square brackets], means that your ad will show when someone searches for that phrase and NOTHING else. Google prioritises ads that are closely targeted to what people have searched for, so this will help you get higher up the results.

6. Always run at least two, differently worded, ads for each campaign. Google will automatically show both adverts alternatively, and you can then see which advert gets a higher CTR (i.e. which ad people are more likely to click on). When you?ve had a good number of clicks you can decide which advert is most effective and delete the less effective one. Then create a new second advert and see if you can get a higher CTR with a different type of wording. This way you are constantly improving the wording on your adverts to make them as attractive and effective as possible.

Steven is part of London web designer Cleartide's team in charge of managing Create a website and 2Clicks.com - the easiest way to build your own website - They specialise in web design, development and strategy.

More PPC Advertising Articles

AdWords: Setting Your Max Cost Per Click
We've received many emails from customers over the past several years asking how high we recommend setting AdWords' max cost per click. Generally, we recommend that our customers set the price somewhere moderately high, between the "base" rate and the max rate suggested by Google.

AdWords Ads: To Syndicate or Not to Syndicate
When running ads on the AdWords network, one of the first decisions you will need to make is on which network or networks your ads will run. You can run your ads on either the Google "search network" (Google, Earthlink, AOL, AskJeeves, etc), the Google "content network" (About.

AdWords Campaign Set Up AdvancedTips
Make Your Ads DifferentYour completed AdWords ads are going to run right along side everyone else's. You need to use words that will make yours stand out.

AdWords Campaign Set Up Tips - Part Two
Ready for more tips on how to make your AdWords campaign work more effectively for your business?Start with a Modest BudgetJust as you should start with a smaller geographical region, start with a modest campaign budget. Spend a few days or a few weeks fine tuning your ads before you really decide to pump up the budget.

AdWords Campaign Set Up Tips
It's easy to overlook the basics of a strong AdWords campaign. Without them though, your AdWords campaign can be doomed from the very start.

Top Paying Keywords: How to Increase Your Pay Per Click Returns
There is no doubting the success of Google's Adsense program. Even Yahoo! and Kanoodle have joined in on the game, offering to join publishers with advertisers.

How To Win The War of Pay per Click Advertising.
Do you know what is the most important question among most internet marketers specially newbie?s. It?s "How to get highly targeted visitors to there site?" Believe me, I know it because I received this question from my subscribers almost daily.

Easy Clickbank Management with the Right Tools
Clickbank has been around for years and has earned an excellent reputation online. They make it easy for anyone to be able to take credit card payments from their websites without the hassle of obtaining a merchant account.

Discover How to Create Ads Which Give Incredible Results!
Many people decide to spend a lot of money putting their advert all over the internet in the hopes that their web traffic will sky-rocket. Most people end up disappointed.

How to Use Pay Per Click Marketing, the Emoneyreport Way!
The cycle of affiliate programs and money making ventures goes something like this:John Doe makes niched website.John Doe inserts affiliate links.