10 Easy Mistakes That Will Make You Fail with Google Adwords

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Pay per click advertising is confusing for most small business owners. They know what they want: an easy and economical way to advertise their businesses on the Internet. Still, the thought of paying for AdWords for people who are “just browsing” can be daunting. Here are some tips about how to make the most of your AdWords budget by avoiding common mistakes.

• Do not use broad geo-targeting. Instead, limit your geo-targeting to a local audience. You will find that people are often searching for local merchants, and you want your name at the top of the list.
• Avoid unfocused campaigns.  It might seem like a good idea to be purposefully vague and target a large audience, but customers tend to become irritated when they click on a link only to find out it was not what they wanted.
• Do not use uncategorized groups. It is important to categorize your keywords. Otherwise, you are throwing them into a communal pool in which you cannot possibly compete.
• Avoid low quality scores.  Your landing page should reflect exactly what your ad promises. Otherwise, you risk a low score and wasted advertising budget. You also risk customer disapproval or frustration at trying to find what they were looking for in the first place.
• Do not allow uncapped CPC bids.  Never use auto-spend on pay-per-click or you could find your budget awash before you begin. Start small and build your advertising to a level that gives you good ROI.
• Avoid bidding broadly.  Long-tail keywords are the key to success. Using fatheads not only burns your budget but puts you in competition with many others doing the same thing. Your business specializes in something, so your keywords should reflect that specialization.
• Be sure to include keyword in your ads.  Some people try to avoid the issues surrounding keywords by deleting them from their ads, but this lowers your overall quality score and does not help promote your business.
• Avoid under-performing keywords.  If your keywords are not working, try something else. It could be that you are simply missing the mark slightly with your audience. Refreshing your keywords could give you a bounce in your rankings and site visits.
• Do not avoid the use of negative keywords.  There is a place for negative keywords, and it is in filtering your results so that you draw in serious customers. Words like “cheap” or “free” will invite a lot of non-buying clickers.
• Avoid running campaigns without using conversion tracking.  You will never know if your ads are working if you do not track your conversion rate. Simply knowing how many people clicked is not enough. This is essentially the same as counting the number of people who come in a store without tracking actual purchases.

With a bit of work, you can tailor your PPC campaign for maximum value and ensure that your customers will buy things when they visit your site.  Orange County SEO can help you maximize your PPC campaign.  Give us a call to discover how.