I hate widgetizing - so I will try to include some real world examples.
Step No. 1 - Keyword Research
- Bookmark the following free tools. We will be using them frequently.
Overture keyword suggestion tool [inventory.overture.com]
Google AdWords keyword suggestion tool [adwords.google.com]
Synonyms Search Tool [vancouver-webpages.com]
- Open a new excel sheet.
- Think of a few unique keyword related to your business. I do not call "loan" as a keyword - don't bother including them in your keyword list. Try to include key phrases (keywords with two words) like "mortgage loan" in your list.
- Once you have a keyword, head for the Overture keyword suggestion tool and type in the keyword. Copy the top 10 or top 20 keywords into the excel sheet. If you find a keyword that is not relevant to your business, do NOT ignore it completely. Put a negative sign. For example -
anti virus
anti virus software
network anti virus
-free
You might also want to include [exact] or "phrase" match - but you can get into those later.
- Right. Now we have an excel sheet that contains some 10 or 20 keywords. We need to find keywords related to the main keyword using Google AdWords keyword suggestion tool.
For example, typing in "web hosting" in Google keyword suggestion lists out useful keywords like "web host", "website hosting" and so on. Make a new column for all these important related keywords in your excel sheet. Go back to Overture's keyword suggestion tool to get the top 10/20 keywords for each of the individual keywords.
Sometimes, Google AdWords tool does not give you any related keywords. Use the synonym research tool to get synomyns of keywords.
- Make sure you bid of plurals of the keywords too. Loan -> Loans, Web Host -> Web Hosts (You get the idea)
At the end of this important exercise, you will have a fairly large number of keywords neatly stacked in columns that can be entered directly in adgroups.
Step No. 2 - Ad Copy Creation
Go to Google.com and type a keyword. In the normal search results, you will notice that the keywords are highlighted in bold. That is to grab the attention of the surfer and to give an impression that the search listing is relevant. Now take a look at some of the AdWords advertisements. You will notice that some of the ads stand out against the rest.
You get the idea - make sure that the main keyword is in the title of the ad copy. If you are creative enough, you could possibly include other associated keywords in the body of the ad.
For example - consider the following keywords -
weight loss
weight loss program
fast weight loss
weight loss plan
diet weight loss
.
.
and so on.
Your ad copy should ideally look something like -
Weight Loss Program
Need to lose weight fast?
Try our diet control plan
[microsoft.com...]
Look at the keywords and look at the ad copy. You will notice that the ad copy has all the important keywords like weight loss, program, plan, diet and fast - and still manages to make sense! Well Almost! ;)
Just make sure the ad copy is grammatically correct. The above ad copy can relate to the surfers who type in the keywords thereby encouraging them to click on the ad.
Step 3 - Keyword Entry/AdGroup creation
- Remember our old excel sheet with columns of unique keywords and its associated terms (mined from Overture)? Make sure you enter them in seperate adgroups.
- Each adgroup should have its own unique ad copy. That's because each adgroup has its own different set of keywords.
For new advertisers, I would recommend that you start with not more than three adgroups. Keep the other keywords for the next day. See how the campaigns perform. If required, make changes in ad copy, bid prices or the keywords.
GROW your AdWords campaign slowly.
Of course - there are other aspects like powerposting etc. You can get into those later! Good Luck!