Google AdWords Trainer and Google AdWords Management

Before you get started with AdWords - you need to decide upon your objectives.

Bear in mind that an average conversion rate is just 1% to 2%. If click costs are £1 each, this means each conversion will be costing you between £100 and £200.

So - your first priority should be to carefully assess if you can actually afford to run AdWords for your website. Bear in mind that the above is based on a NORMAL conversion rate - yours may very well start off less than this!

If you want to get started with AdWords, identify a handful of products, ideally your higher margin products to advertise. Use very specific keywords such as brand names rather than generic keywords like "childrenswear". Add your keywords to small groups called ad groups, but add your keywords like this:

[skip hop changing bag]
"skip hop changing bag"

As adding the keywords once with square brackets and once with speech marks will ensure Google only advertises on these specific words and is not given free rein to match against other words it believes are related.

Make sure you have set up conversion tracking to track the sales back to the keyword level.

A good way to start is with a promotional code - we often have these to give away to new clients and if you purchase our AdWords DVD set which explains how to set up a campaign successfully.

In previous blogs, we have examined the real positive benefits of utilizing negative keywords in your Adwords campaign. Removing certain keywords will ensure you will get the maximum amount of real customers clicking through on your adverts. In this update we will detail some ideas of how to think about which negative keywords to choose for your campaign.

Generic negative keywords

There are some keywords that should generally be added to virtually any Adwords account, regardless of the niche you are working within. The first group is those which target specific sites - the searcher is not looking to come to your site at all, so this will negatively affect your quality score. (Examples: Facebook, eBay, Craigslist, MySpace, and YouTube).

You will usually want to exclude people searching for games or freebies, unless of course this is your niche, or you are trying to entice buyers through an initial free offer. (Examples: games, game, free, free sample, samples)

Similarly, searches for maps or directions rarely result in a sale, but can get mixed up with real searches. (Examples: maps, map, directions)
It is a good idea to exclude sexual related terms, as they are widely searched for but won't convert. (Examples: sex, sexy, nude, porn)

Market-specific negative search terms

Think about the type of customer you are targeting within your niche. If you are targeting high-end customers only, it may be sensible to discount those looking for bargain-basement prices. Similarly, if you are budget provider, it is sometimes a good idea to remove searches that are only looking the best of the best. Be careful with this use of negative keywords as you could turn away real customers if you are too aggressive, but if you are confident your customers are a specific bunch then this can really make your Adwords campaign more effective.

High-end keyword examples: designer, expensive, high end, luxurious, luxury
Bargain keyword examples: bargain, blowout, cheap, cheapest, clearance, coupon, deals, discount, free, inexpensive, overstock, sale, wholesale, warehouse

Niche-specific negative search terms

Finally, there are search terms which you may want to avoid based on your broad niche. For example if you are a car dealership that sells new cars only, consider adding antique, collectible, and auction to your negative keywords. If you are in the financial niche, it is sensible to add a range of career-related negative keywords such as jobs, freelancer, full-time, position etc.

Once you have built up this general foundation for your niche, you can continue to refine your negative keywords based on your businesses specific product. Over time, and with a little work, you can ensure that the people clicking through to your site are likely to be highly motivated with a chance of converting. This in turn will allow you to spend more on your Adwords campaign as you can be confident that the results you will get will be strong.

Most SEO companies don't like SEO packages.

But we've found our SME clients prefer them. Our prospects turn into clients because they know exactly how much it will cost, and what they will get for their money. So we feel that we're transparent for your sake, and for ours as it means we're not promising you the world. It has allowed us to create a series of processes we carry out in-house which we follow religiously without fail, and then report back to you on. Too often have we heard stories about SEO companies that don't actually seem to do anything.

We don't fob our prospects off saying that each site is different, asking you CALL US FOR A QUOTE before hitting you with a salesperson who wants you to pay £4000 for a setup fee. Instead we suggest you choose for yourself a suitable price point you feel comfortable with, and take it from there. We don't charge a setup fee if you commit to regular payments via either standing order or Paypal subscription. It works for us.

Many of our clients start off on a bronze package, upgrading and adding in more competitive keywords over time as their business grows due to the success of their first set of keywords. We encourage clients to start off lower and progress higher over time.

We often get calls and emails from people who say they love the fact we package SEO into items - so yes we do firmly believe SEO CAN and SHOULD be packaged for SMEs and we intend to keep it that way

The items in our SEO packages change as Google changes its algorithm, so these are always under review. But we'll continue to keep it transparent, so our prospects and clients will know exactly what you are getting for your money!