Top 7 Google AdWords Mistakes

October 10, 2008 by Butterfly Filed under: PPC

Google AdWords is possible the greatest marketing medium available. You can define your keywords, design your adverts and be up and running in minutes. It all sounds so easy, but many advertisers never succeed. These are the biggest mistakes people make and how you can avoid them.

1. All your keywords in 1 Ad Group

This is the most common mistake people make when starting out with Google AdWords, they grab a load of keywords, create a ad group and create a single ad. The problem here is that you are trying to make 1 advert work for many keywords.

You need to create a Ad Group for every keyword so you can create a separate ultra relevant Ad and maximize your advertising budget.

2. Poorly Written Ads

I have lost track of the amount of Ads that I have seen that are poorly written with no benefits, features or even a call to action.

The ideal advert should contain your keyword(s) in the headline. Description line 1 should contain a feature of your product and description line 2 should contain a unique benefit of your product.

3. Not Landing On The Correct Page

How many times have I seen this, it drives me mad. What is worst is the fact that most of these bad examples all seem to belong to the big boys in their own niche.

If I type a specific product into Google and I see a advert that says Product XYZ… I don’t want to be taken to the advertisers homepage, so I then have to search through the site to find what I want.

Always make sure your adverts land on the correct page.

4. Not Researching Keywords

To many people do not do enough research into keywords, just because you call a widget a widget, it doesn’t mean that everyone else out there on the internet know it as that.

Keyword research is essential so that you can find those niche phrases that people are searching for when looking for your product.

5. Only Using Broad Keywords

Google AdWords allows you to use 4 different types of keywords, these are Broad, “Phrase”, [Exact] and -Negative.

If you have the broad keywords Google Search, you Ad will be displayed every time the words Google and Search are searched for, for example Google Image Search.

If your had “Google Search” as phrase match your Ad will only be displayed if the search contained the exact phrase, however it can have other words before and after. For example Google Search Engine.

Using a exact match for [Google Search] would mean that your ad would only be displayed if someone searched for your exact key phrase.

For the best results you should create both “Phrase” and [Exact] match keywords. You should only use Broad match keywords in conjunction with -Negative keywords.

Negative keywords are keywords that when searched for your ad does not appear. If you had the negative keyword -Earth, your Broad match keywords would not display if someone searched for Search Google Earth.

6. Not Split Testing

It is too easy to create your Google AdWords Ad and then just let it run. One of the best ways to reducing your cost per click is to split test.

Spit testing involves creating a second advert for a Ad Group where you change just one single thing. You may change the headline or one of the description lines. It is important that you just change one item so you can then run the adds together and see which as the best results.

Once you have a winner you can create another ad and try to better it again.

7. Not Monitoring Your Results

This has got to be one of the biggest crimes, not only with Google AdWords but in marketing and advertising in general. Too many people do not track their results or their ROI.

If you are doing this you may as well be throwing your money away as you can not tell what type of marketing or even which keywords on Google AdWords are bringing you the highest sales.

If you avoid these 7 mistakes, you will see your Google AdWords costs lowering and your sales increasing.

I wish you all the best