Marketing on the Internet is essential today, but that does not mean it is easy to do. You need to approach your marketing from several different angles and try different strategies to see what will work the best for you. One of those strategies that are working well for many businesses is utilizing Google AdWords. Proper usage can help with onsite content, including a company’s sales through their ecommerce website. However, proper implementation is important in order for the keywords to work properly for you.
Many make mistakes with them, but you do not have to fall into that category. Let’s examine some of the biggest AdWords mistakes so you can be sure you aren’t making them.
Using the Wrong Keyword Matches
Some marketers are not using the right keyword matches for their site. With AdWords, you can add keywords in several different ways – broad, phrase, and exact match. It is important to understand what each of these means.
The broad match means that the ads will show up on a search, regardless of their order in the viewer’s search string. For example, if the keyword were “HP computers”, your ad would show up in searches that have those words anywhere in them. Someone could look up “HP laptop computers”, or “why computers from HP are terrible”, and your ad will show up. As you can imagine, this does not always work out in your favor.
A phrase match simply means that the entire phrase will need to be in the customer’s search in order for your ad to show up. They would need to use the entire phrase in that order. It will not show up if a word interrupts the phrase. In the above example, if you have a phrase match set up with AdWords, only those searches that have “HP computers” in that order would have an advertisement.
An exact match requires that the customer type in your exact keyword match in order for the ad to show up.
By using exact matches, it can limit the number of people who see your ad, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, by being able to narrow your focus, it becomes possible to increase the chance of finding your niche audience. Even though the broad match might give you more impressions, this does not mean that you will have more sales. Often, the narrower the match the better, as you can focus on your niche far more precisely.
No Negative Keywords
Another one of the big issues with Google AdWords is the fact that many ecommerce websites do not stop to consider the benefits of using negative keywords. You can add these keywords that are specific to things that you do not sell. For example, if you sell board games and role-playing tabletop games, but you do not sell videogames, then videogames could be a negative keyword. This ensures that when people simply look up games or RPGs, your ad doesn’t show up.
One of the best ways to look up the proper negative keywords to use is by searching Analytics at the Matched Search Queries. You can check the Query Match Type and look at the broad or phrase match so you see what types of phrases people are looking for and using, and then choose negative keywords from what you find to narrow your ads to the right audience.
These simple things really can make a big difference when it comes to the success of your Google AdWords campaign. As always, you will want to experiment and record the results. Make each successive campaign better and more successful than the last.
Resource: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/10-commons-adwords-mistakes/