Thursday, February 26, 2009

How To Get A Better Clickthrough Rate With Google Adwords

Creating highly effective ads on Google Adwords is an ongoing process, and you'll probably spend weeks and months tweaking analyzing your strategy as you build your campaign. Still, you don't have to settle or a trial and error process every step of the way, especially when it comes to increasing your clickthrough rate (CTR). Internet marketing strategists such as Perry Marshall and countless others have already harnessed the power of Google Adwords by employing several strategies that generate results from the start.

Interested in how you can increase your clickthrough rates? Read on to learn about two proven strategies that, used properly, offer a foolproof path to Adwords success.

Doing Negative Keyword Research

Since Adword ads rely so heavily on the correct use of keywords, you will want to run frequent keyword reports. This can be done using various different software tools, many available online, and some even for free. Wordtracker, one such tool, offers a free keyword selector as well as a subscriptions. By creating a spreadsheet filled in with all the effective and relevant keywords, you can learn a great deal about how best to focus your ad campaign on potential customer. Also important, however, are negative keywords.

Negative keywords and key phrases are those that are related to your specific niche, product or service, but do not offer immediate value. After identifying what your ideal customer may be searching for, you'll be able to conjecture the specific key terms (positive keywords) they may use to find you. For example, if you are selling referral tracking software, you want to identify customers who are typing in key phrases such as 'buy referral tracking software', 'using referral tracking software', etc. Those who might type in 'free referral tracking software' do not fall under your target market radar, and need to be eliminated. You can employ this strategy with every niche and keyword list, paring it down until you have a very refined, highly targeted listing of keywords that apply only to your ideal customer.

Split Test to Create More Effective Adwords Ads

Split testing is commonly used in offline marketing strategies to test the market. For example, a company may send out two different direct mail pieces to select customers to gauge response rates, or they may create two different promotional offers to see which message or campaign is more effective than the other.

Just as in traditional marketing media, split testing proves a valuable ally for marketers developing a Google Adwords campaign. Once you've decided which keywords you should and should not employ in your attempts to reach the ideal audience, you can then turn your attention to the specifics of how these keywords are used, testing slightly different phrasings in Adword ads and seeing which are most effective.

Split testing with your Google Adwords campaign is one of the best ways to maximize your online marketing efforts and steadily increase your clickthrough rate. Perry Marshall, a Google Adwords educator and online marketing strategist explains that this is one of the most effective - if not the most effective way - to increase your clickthrough rate over a short period of time. By continually split testing ads against each other, you'll start to see a noticeable traffic increase and can eliminate the poor-performing ad early on in your testing phases.

Marketing with Google Ad Words is a powerful technique that most online-businesses can use to attract more customers. Creating quality Google Ads is one of the most important skills to have when using Ad Words - and there are several good training resources available online.