Trying to dive straight into AdWords with the little time that you have whilst running a business can be a daunting task, with many business owners abandoning the platform when faced with the complexities of setting up their first campaign.
This beginner’s guide to AdWords infographic aims to provide you with the following:
- Get you up to scratch with the basic terminology you will encounter when you start AdWords.
- Understand how keywords work and how they trigger adverts to appear to search users and how to select keywords
- Explain the structure of Campaigns, AdGroups, Ads and Keywords.
- Explain how improvements to your ads and your website can bring you costs down.
Remember that AdWords is a self-serving advertising platform, which means it’s designed for business owners to run campaigns themselves. Avoid the common pitfalls by learning how to set things up properly and check out the infographic below.
I wanted to keep the above infographic short and sweet, covering the absolute basics of AdWords.
However there is definitely more that a newbie to the world of Pay Per Click advertising can learn, so check out the below tips to expand your learning from the infogaphic.
Check Your Campaign Settings Carefully
There are a few Campaign settings in AdWords that really should not be defaults which can drain your budget at worst and drive up your impressions and lower your overall statistics at the very least. The two main culprits are:
- Search with Display Select: Do not let AdWords default your Campaign to this setting. Instead, click on Search Network Only. If you want to run display adverts, just create a seperate Campaign for the Display Network.
- Location Tageting (Advanced): By default AdWords targets people in, or who show interest in, your target area. I’ve been showing interest in South Korea lately as I’m planning a trip, but I’m sure a local business in Seoul or Busan don’t want me seeing their ads. Click the option to target people only in your target area, this is super important if you’re only wanting to target a small radius around your business’ physical location.
Don’t Target Loosely Relevant Keywords
Remember that AdWords isn’t your one-stop-shop for all of your advertising solutions.
AdWords is designed to be highly targeted and specific to the user.
Plus, remember that you are paying each time everyone clicks. You don’t want people that may somewhat be kind of interested in what you’re selling wasting your advertising budget.
Whilst a person looking for video game consoles may also be interested in your cool headsets, they didn’t search for that, so your quality score (and your immediate relevance in general) is going to be poor. To push a message out to a relevant audience, consider display advertising in Google Display Network or Facebook.
“Quality Scores Default at 6, Not 1”
There has been some confusion over my infographic stating that your Quality Scores starts at 1/10.
Whilst it’s true that initially your scores will start off at 6/10, this is AdWords giving you the benefit of the doubt until it’s had a chance to properly assess your keywords, ads and landing pages.
Once Google starts tallying up your score, it’s starting you off at 1/10 and building you up from there. That’s why you may see all of your keywords scoring 6/10 when you first set up the account and then a few days later, for example, some slip down to 3/10 or others jump to 8/10.
Why Quality Score Reduces CPC
Simply put, Google doesn’t want you to mislead their search users.
If this system wasn’t in place, there is the potential that misleading ads and spammy offers could litter the AdWords space creating a poor and untrustworthy user experience that would put Google’s popularity at risk. The less popular Google is, the more it’s monopoly on search weakens as would its profits from clicks.
And the last thing Google wants their users to do is to jump ship and “Bing it”! So keep the ads and landing pages relevant to the keywords that you’re targeting at all times.
How Good Quality Scores Reduce CPC
This can be one of the most difficult things about AdWords to explain, especially since it takes what you’ve just learned about the bidding system and puts a fresh new spin on things.
I’ve taken a snippet from an awesome infographic from Pulp Media’s website on how AdWords works as it summarises a somewhat complicated process in an easy to understand way.
