When creating a Google AdWords campaign, there are several elements which have a real influence on how effectively the campaign will work and a number which play a key role in this.

Some of the most important ones are:

• establishing your target audience
• correct keyword selection
• good AdGroup creation
• compelling Advert text
• relevant landing page

There is also the requirement for all of these elements to work together and effectively create a funnel which will help to direct potential customers from when they type their search term into the Search Engine through to the call to action page on your website.

The three main stages along this path are:

Keyword Phrases:ensure that you are attracting the right group of Search Engine users by focused keyword phrase selection

Advert text: the advert should reinforce the keyword phrases you are targeting and, ideally, should contain those words as well.

Landing page: the landing page should be a specific one covering the same area as the initial keyword phrase - let them know they are in the right place

So, in a little more detail:

Keyword Phrases: first of all you need to ensure that you are attracting the right group of Search Engine users and this is achieved by selecting the right keyword phrases. You can choose as many relevant ones as you like but, because the adverts are linked to an AdGroup in Google AdWords, you will then need to divide them into AdGroups focused on keyword phrases that cover a similar area and that can be successfully represented by the same advert.

Advert text: this should reinforce the keyword phrases you are targeting and, ideally, should contain those words as well. This reassures the searcher that they are looking at an advert which will lead to exactly the information they are looking for. It can also filter out those who are not appropriate by focusing further on the products being offered. There is no point allowing someone to click through to your site looking for a solicitor in London when you are based in Birmingham - you pay for the click with little chance of winning any business from it. Judge your audience and adjust accordingly.

Landing page: at worst the advert should point at a specific page on your site which covers the same area as the initial keyword phrase and at best it would point to a special landing page you have created which is focused on the subject matter of the keywords you are targeting. Do not just send visitors through to the homepage - this is just like saying “ok you’re in the right place, now let’s see if you can find the information you’re after”, a bit like “hide and seek” if you like! Not the recipe for capturing that warm lead and showing them that you can answer their needs!

By linking these three elements you are creating both a funnel and a filter at the same time, and when done correctly will deliver only targeted visitors who are interested in what you offer through to your website. But you should not just have a single funnel - remember that each AdGroup is a separate funnel aimed at a different set of keyword phrases, so by putting them all together you get a whole series of individually targeted groups of customers arriving at your website.

We know that identifying the best keyword phrases is going to be key to our efforts to get better rankings through Search Engine Optimisation or better coverage in Search Advertising programmes. It can also help to achieve a more comprehensive coverage in our chosen area by identifying keyword phrases in adjacent areas that are relevant to what we offer.

To help in this task and find the best keyword phrases, there are a number of tools available to help us achieve this and a lot of them are free!

Here are ones that I have looked at and consider worthwhile.

WordTracker
Probably the best known tool in the field and self styled “Leading Keyword Research Tool”. It is charged for, although there is a limited free trial, but it is also very complete in what it offers across a number of Search Engines.

Google AdWords: Keyword Tool
Gives ideas for new keywords associated with your target phrase but does not indicate relevance or give details of number or frequency of searches

Overture Keyword Selector Tool
Returns details of how many searches have been carried out in the Overture engine over the period of a month and allows a drill down into associated keywords containing your keyword phrase as well.

NicheBot
NicheBot has a mix of Wordtracker and Overture based tools as well as a nice keyword analysis tool which focuses on Google’s results

Digital Point Keyword Suggestion Tool
One of a set of tools available at the Digital Point website – this engine gives search numbers on keywords from Wordtracker and Overture sources

In addition to these, although some of the keyword tools mentioned above already include it, I would also recommend taking a look through a Thesaurus (online or paperback) to open up other avenues. Sometimes you just can’t beat going back to basics!

Keyword phrases are the words that you focus on either in your website pages or in your online advertising and the ones that you wish to be found for when you attract visitors to your site.

Keyword phrases are key to two elements of working with Search Engines: optimising a website and using Search Advertising effectively. Effectively these are the phrases that best represent the content of your site and that you wish people to type into their Search Engine in order to find you , your website and your products.

Some ways of identifying the best keyword phrases for your website:

• think about what your product or service does or more importantly what benefits it offers;
• talk to clients and ask them what words sum up what you do;
• use some of the tools available to help find what words are commonly searched on and what other words and phrases are similar to them;
• examine your direct competitors sites and their online campaigns and see what words they are focusing on.

Remember: it is how you are perceived by others that is the important point to remember and not necessarily how you believe that you are perceived.

How you use the keyword phrases is important but finding the right ones is critical or else all the time that you spend using them after that point will be time wasted.

One of the fundamental ways of refining a campaign within Google AdWords is by using the 3 special forms available to target your adverts at the people that you wish to view them - specifically those people who you can be fairly certain are looking for what you can supply.

Why are these different forms important? Well, they can help us not only to create very targeted campaigns which will bring the right people to our websites but also help to improve our bid position in AdWords which is calculated on the level of bid and the Click through Rate (CTR) of the campaign. We also need to remember that AdWords campaigns can have differing goals including creating awareness, brand re-inforcement as well as traffic generation - in teh first two cases greater visibility (albeit less targeted) may be preferable.

The generic match is called Broad Match in AdWords terms - here you would simply enter the keywords as they are such as internet marketing advice and then your advert would be shown whenever these terms are searched on, in any order and with any mixture of other words. As they say, a VERY broad match which will give you the possibility of being found across a wide range of searches.

However, in most cases you will want to be able to focus much more specifically on the areas that you deal with so will want to use the other options available. These are:

Phrase Match - using quotation marks around the phrase such as “internet marketing advice” means that your adverts will appear when these keywords are searched for in this order, although they can appear with other search terms. So searches for good internet marketing advice or internet marketing advice newsletter would mean that your advert would appear.

Exact Match - using square brackets around the phrase such as [internet marketing advice] means that this exact phrase and only this phrase has to be serached for if you want your advert to appear. Anything else, including misspellings, and it won’t.

Negative Match - by using a hyphen in front of the phrase (think ‘minus’ sign) such as -bad you make sure that you add will NOT appear if that word or phrase appears anywhere in the search. So in this example, a search on bad internet marketing advice will not make your advert appear. Thankfully …!