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Top Google AdWords Tips

You’ve been given 7 days to live.  Your AdWords campaign sucks.  What to do?

Why do something as boring as flying around the world, making amends with long-lost friends you have hurt, or taking that parachute jump you’ve always meant to do.

Why do this when you can thrillingly spend your last waning hours with pay per click…making positive changes to your Google AdWords campaign for the benefit our your heirs?

1.  Get Current with AdWords

Stale and declining AdWords campaigns might be affected by external causes.  It seems that 90% of the time, this is the case.  Check the Google AdWords blog or with the active DigitalPoint AdWords forum to see what’s going on.

2.  Clear Messages and Alerts from Google

Often, Google will post an alert to your on your AdWords account.  In the graphic mess of things, these alerts can get lost.  They might say something like, “We have frozen your keywords because…”  Really, this does happen.

3.  Set Up Google Analytics Fast

Google Analytics is blindingly, amazing simple to install, and you should be ashamed if you haven’t done this.  I know:  I procrastinated for a long time before putting Analytics code onto my pages.  I thought:  Nah, it’s too hard and I don’t really need it.  Wrong.

Click on the Analytics tab, then Analytics settings.  It’s about 3 minutes to get set up with AdWords, then another five to set on your pages.  Even if you have no immediate plans for using this data, do this now.  This way, you can build up data over time and can always come back to it when you need it.

4.  Activate Your Quality Score Column

Most AdWords users do not activate this column.  Quality Score is the device that drives all things good and bad in your AdWords account.  Go into your Ad Groups, then click the Keywords tab.  The drop-down menu reading “<Show/hide columns>” give you the option of adding the Quality Score column.

5.  Strip Out Low-Performing Keywords

First, any keywords that have a Poor Quality Score you need to either fix or lose them.  Next, arrange the keywords so that the highest CTRs are at top, with the losers at the bottom.  Just click the blue hyperlink named “CTR” once or possibly twice.  Low CTR keywords drag everything down.  Consider losing them, too.

6.  Set Up Ad Copy “Cage Fights”

Cage fights – my term for this activity where you run one ad against the other and see which one performs better.  Each ad is identical except in one aspect.  It’s your choice as to which aspect you change:  a price, a trademark symbol, a hyphen, a different headline.  Be creative.  Let them run for at least 30 clicks and see which one get the highest CTR; dump the loser.

7.  Splinter Your Ad Groups

Break up those gigantic 1,000 keyword Ad Groups.  Start creating small, granular Ad Groups with 1-3 related keywords.  It’s often called the “Peel and Stick” method, too.

Bonus:  Consider the High-Level Keywords

Let’s say you’re given one extra day to live.  With all the talk about long-tail keywords, why not give a little love back to the more expensive, broad keywords?  While they have been much-maligned in the past few years, they do give you the satisfying rush of instant, massive traffic–yes, at a price.  Perhaps you can tweak other areas of your campaign, such as your landing page, in order to afford pricier keywords.