9 Things You Need to Know About Google AdWords...

  Written by Raymond Fong on Sep 21, 2008 1:10 am

Read More: Marketing  |  Pay per Click

9 Google AdWords Tips

As you may know, Google AdWords is king of Pay-Per-Click. They get tons of advertisers vying for an ad spot and paying top dollars for those spots. As such, Google maintains the highest standards of quality control - punishing those who don't know what they are doing while rewarding those who do. While Google does offer a ton of help to advertisers trying to do well on the network, they don't bother making it easy to find that "help". I guess they figure that only those who are truly serious about marketing will bother digging and searching around for these nuggets of tips that'll help them market better on AdWords. Below are 9 advanced tips/strategies I dug up that will help you get a better understanding of AdWords and help your efforts. Enjoy!

9 (Advanced) Things You May Not Know About Google AdWords

  1. Google keeps a history of how good your account performs.

    The better your track record, the more Google likes you. And the more Google likes you, the less cost your clicks will be. By track record I am talking about your click-thru-rate, ad position, how much you are spending, your keywords' quality score, etc.

  2. You can use Google AdWords Tool to analyze your website for keywords.

    Just use the "Website content" option and enter your web address. The best part about this is that Google will return keywords in the order of relevancy, so you know what will make Google happy and give you a good quality score. And if the keyword you want to bid on is lower on the relevancy scale, you know you should go back and optimize your landing page more for that keyword. AdWords Tool

  3. If you have bad history with Google and want to start afresh, opening a new AdWords account doesn't cut it... you'll have to come up with a brand new domain name since Google also tracks domain names.

    If you are worried about losing PageRanks, don't sweat it. Keep your current name for SEO purposes and retaining your ranking, use the new domain to point to the same folder on your server and use THAT domain for PPC only.

  4. Content Network is longer requires you to bid using CPM.

    Google has wisened up and now allows CPC on the content network... This is great news for you so go setup your content network!

  5. You are no longer blind on the content network.

    You can actually see exactly where you ads on content network is showing up on by running a Report. Wooooohhhh, can you link this to placement targeting? (Hint: the answer is yes, you are now able to see which relevant sites have AdSense and now try targeting it with placement targeting). adwords report

  6. Google throttles your account initially.

    Don't be surprised if you find your account not getting the clicks (or impressions for that matter) you wanted and thought you'd get. Google sets up a cap for you in terms of spending. Brand new accounts start at only $50 per pay period and they typically bill you once a month. What this means that you may try telling Google you want to spend $2,000 a month and you want to get ALL those clicks... but in reality, they are only going to get you at most $50 worth of clicks. AdWords-Limit (This one shows a limit of $500.) Once they successfully charge your card, they raise your limit a bit, and the cycle repeats. This is why having an AdWords account with long history helps (your limit goes up).

  7. Google is fine with your using the word "free" in your ad...

    But when a visitor goes to your website, they better get what they were promised for "free". And having them opt-in first to get the product is not "free" - Google knows that a lead is worth some monetary value.

  8. Make sure you have "Privacy Policy", "Disclaimer", and "Contact" pages (or some form of them) reachable from your landing page.

    Google wants you to be very open (and honest) with what you are doing.

  9. Every 6 to 8 weeks, a pair of actual human eyes WILL scope out your account including your ads and your landing page...

    So if you are trying anything funny (i.e. using the word FREE in your ad, using illegal pop-ups, etc.), don't be surprised if your campaign, that was once rolling just fine, all of a sudden get slapped by Google. And if you think, "oh, no problem, if that happens, I'll just UNNNNDO what I did." Well, guess what, it'll take another 6 to 8 weeks before another human eyes come back and UNslap you... That's some costly wait time.

There ya have it folks! Please feel free to post any more tips/advice you have concerning AdWords in the comments section. Raymond Fong

======================= Please Rate this Article ======================= To get even more killer AdWords tips, please visit www.SeduceAdWords.com or to learn how you can partner up with Raymond Fong, visit him at GPT Coffee House Letter.
Login or register to post comments  |   Views Views: 1,382   |  Comments Comments: 16  

5 Days to Success with Google Adwords

Dramatically Increase Website Traffic With Cutting Edge SEO Training

About the Author: Raymond Fong

View Profile

Member Since: 11/15/2007

I'm a Distributor For:: Numis Network

Other Company: Affinity Integration, LLC

Industry: Consulting

Primary Web Site: http://www.RaymondFong.net/

Comments

Thanks Raymond. Very good

Thanks Raymond. Very good information. I'm starting to have a little bit of success now with adwords and any information to improve upon that is great.

Bryce Woodard — Sun, 09/21/2008 - 1:22am

Thanks

Mr. Fong,

Thank you for excellent information. It's information like this which saves us all from hours of our own research.

Orville Campbell, MD

DoctorCampbell (not verified) — Sun, 09/21/2008 - 7:44pm

Adwords

Hi Raymond,

What an excellent report, I had no idea there of the processes.

Thanks again

Emmanuel Mba — Mon, 09/22/2008 - 4:50am

Great stuff - thanks

Great stuff - thanks

Russell Miller — Mon, 09/22/2008 - 8:20am

Thanks Raymond!

Great info! 

I am trying to make a decision, will you be able to help me?  Should I outsource my campaigns to a seo company?  I have a account with Homestead, who offers SEO services.  I also considered using Engine Seeker?  Or should I start a campaign myself?  I am not experienced with google at all.  Thanking you in advance. 

Sharnese LaNier — Mon, 09/22/2008 - 10:43am

Thanks Raymond!

Great info! 

I am trying to make a decision, will you be able to help me?  Should I outsource my campaigns to a seo company?  I have a account with Homestead, who offers SEO services.  I also considered using Engine Seeker?  Or should I start a campaign myself?  I am not experienced with google at all.  Thanking you in advance. 

Sharnese LaNier — Mon, 09/22/2008 - 10:43am

Good Stuff Man

Hey Raymond,

Nice article man, great approach for marketing it too. The account history stuff is really important information you gave away. I've found out to my pleasant surprise that if you're well behaved and get google on your side, they'll send you lots of nice cheap traffic.

 

They've also become much more forgiving with their modified slap rules (minimum bid to reach first page), you can actually recover from poor performance and you have a better chance to succeed in recovering if you clean up your ad copy and get really focused tight keywords.

 

Jim

Jim Yaghi — Tue, 09/23/2008 - 5:51pm

Thanks y'all

Thanks for the kind words folks.

A lot of this data just isn't well published (i.e. the history/track record element of Google) and it really takes some digging to find the answers.

Jim's absolutely right. As long you don't try to yank Google's customers' chains (i.e. doing a bait and switch and using trickery), you'll be fine. Just know that Google wants the savviest of marketers to be on their system so do your diligence and learn the system (and don't try to game it).

As for recovery... I think it depends on how long you've been in Google's dog-house. One of the accounts Ferny and I adopted and are managing right now has been in the doghouse between 1~2 years now.

I've tried every trick in the book to get out of it but to no avail. I spoke with Ryan Deiss and Perry Belcher a few days ago and they both agreed that the domain name go trashed (hence tip #3...).

So it's off to a new domain name! (Lesson: don't neglect your AdWords account!)

Raymond

Raymond Fong — Tue, 09/23/2008 - 6:17pm

Wonderful stuff Raymond, thanks

Those tips are great, it really does make a difference to have someone point that stuff out and save us so much time on researching this on our own.

Warm Regards

Debs

Debbie Williams — Wed, 09/24/2008 - 6:43am

Raymond - about recent adwords changes...

Hi Raymond,

I used Adwords in the past, until about 2004, with a great deal of success. Recently I started a new campaign and quickly got slapped. Things have changed, to say the least!

Please answer these questions:

1. What steps to take to get "unslapped" (the quickest way is preferred)?

2. I have read that you need to have a website with a minimum of 30 to 50 pages of content now for google to be happy  (to pay them for trafffic!). I have also witnessed adwords advertisers utilizing video for "stickiness" and these sites are only 3 or 4 pages of landing page content with video. What's the truth about what is needed for long-tern adwords traffic?

Thanks,

Dean Rittenhouse

 

Dean Rittenhouse — Fri, 09/26/2008 - 6:32am

2004 is a LONG time ago :)

Hi Dean,

Wow, yeah, 2004... that's a ways off. Back then you can do the "throw mud on the wall and see what sticks" but not anymore. There could be a ton of reasons of you getting slapped, so it'd be challenging to pinpoint exactly why you got slapped without any insight into your campaign.

I'd say start with relevancy. Are your keywords relevant to the ad and to the landing page? Google doesn't like seeing 82938473 keywords in an ad group so much anymore.

As for question #2, Google doesn't mind capture pages, as a matter of fact, Google uses capture pages themselves. But yes, having loads of content and having people stay on your page forever and ever help. In an ideal world, Google would have you catering to every whim of their users without trying to sell them ANYTHING, period.

But that's no going to happen...

Ultimately it comes down to, are you relevant? Will you provide the end user a "good" experience? Will they feel okay coming onto your landing page after clicking on your ad (bearing in mind what they were searching for in the first place)?

If yes, then you are fine. Hope that helps.

Raymond
P.S. Join us in the group Google AdWords Strategies if you haven't already done so where we'll focus all on AdWords :)

Raymond Fong — Fri, 09/26/2008 - 1:14pm

Ray, again overdelivering...

Hey Ray,

excellent article, and amazing content... As always, overdelivering!

Quick question, though: when you say:

"new domain to point to the same folder on your server and use THAT domain for PPC only."

Could you develop this a little more? Are you saying if I have domain www.example.com I should make a new campaign using www.2ndround.example.com?

The technical part always gets to me..

And folks, do not start adwords without checking seduceadwords.com!

Thanks Ray!

Leonardo Saraceni — Thu, 12/18/2008 - 10:00pm

Leo, What that means us that

Leo,

What that means us that you would register a new domain and add that to your server as an "addon domain".  You can specify that new domain to point to your folder containing all the info.

For example, let's say your domain is www.example.com and you have a folder on your server called "example" where this domain points to.  However, it has bad history with Google AdWords so using example.com in AdWords means an automatic Google slap.  So go register a new domain, www.exampletwo.com as an addon domain and have it point to the folder "example".

So when a user goes to example.com and exampletwo.com, they see the EXACT same site (they both point to the same folder on the same server).  But now, you have a fresh domain to work with in Google AdWords.

An working example of this is completemartialart.com and martialartinlosangeles.com

Raymond

P.S. This of course assumes you have control over your domain/servers.

Raymond Fong — Fri, 12/19/2008 - 1:07am

Clear as a whistle, Ray

Ahhhhh!!

Now I got it, Ray.

Thank you. Yeah, I know enough to have an addon domain added, I think I can do just that.

Great advice, Bro.

Leo.

Leonardo Saraceni — Fri, 12/19/2008 - 1:12pm

Hi Raymond, Great post dude!

Hi Raymond,

Great post dude! I have a question for point 6. Google throttles your account initially.

I have begun my very first campaign on Adwords and am finding it difficult to understand why I am not getting any impressions at all. So zero impressions and hence zero clicks. I began this campaign about 4 days ago and I have around 250 keywords, all of which have a quality score of 7/10 to 9/10, which I believe I pretty good. Each keyword belongs to its own adgroup, so as to be more relevant and targeted.

I began with an initial max CPC of 0.50, but that was apparently too low to get onto the first page. So I eventually increased it to $2 for each keyword. My daily budget is at $5000.00! I know what you are thinking, I shouldn't set my daily budget that high, it's unnecessary. Believe me, I was thinking the same thing myself, but you know what, even that amount hasn't changed a thing. All my keywords still have zero impressions. The 'Ad Showing?' questions says 'No'. What is bothering me is I have pretty good quality scores. I also have a landing page to presell the offer I'm promoting, which is relevant also. I have all the privacy, contact, terms, etc links all in there. I have a site with a blog for related content. Everything that I believe should be ther, is all there.

Do you have any ideas as to what's happening here? Is this related to your point 6? My current balance says $10.00 and this refers to the activation fee. My first payment however is dues when I reach $100.00. It says that the $10.00 is the activation fee... now if that is still part of my balance, does that mean my account is not activated? If so, how am I supposed to reach $100.00 payable if I can't even get any clicks to pay for, let alone impressions.

Please help, I am totally stumped and do not know what to do.

Kind regards,

Noah.

Noah Ark — Sat, 01/03/2009 - 8:14am

thanks for the tips evey little bit helps

Nice job I will look up my stuff.  Thanks again for the tips.

www.profitwithautoresponders.com

Ed Adams — Mon, 03/16/2009 - 7:27am
 

And Get A FREE Copy of our brand new 82 page training guide, "More Friends, More Money" which will teach you how to build any home business using free social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube!

We respect your privacy and do not tolerate spam. Tens of thousands of home business owners have already benefited from this revolutionary information, and now you can safely do so as well.