Common Google Adwords Mistakes

Internet marketers know that using Google AdWords is an excellent way to drive traffic to their sites. Since it can be expensive if not handled correctly, the trick is to manage campaigns to get the highest return on investment.

A poorly managed campaign can cost more than it brings in, but a well managed campaign can keep your store or company in business. It all comes down to how much you know about AdWords and how smartly you can manage your campaigns. It is best to take a google adwords training course to get the hang of it.

In this post, we’ll discuss the top 10 mistakes people make with Google AdWords. By avoiding these mistakes and following the alternative advice provided, you’ll be on your way to a highly successful AdWords campaign.

Mistake #1: Not Grouping Keywords Correctly

AdWords is set up so you can create campaign ad groups to manage different types of campaigns. (If you have a product campaign and a content campaign, each of them can be managed separately.) Within each campaign, you can break down your ads and keywords into ad groups.

Not using ad groups is one of the biggest mistakes people make. Instead of segmenting their ads into groups based around similar types of keywords, they lump all of their keywords into one ad group and show everyone the same ad.

Mistake #2: Not Using the Right Keyword Matches

The next biggest mistake people make is not using the right broad match, phrase match, or exact match keywords.

Here’s how this works: AdWords allows you to add keywords to a campaign in one of the three ways mentioned above. You can add them as a broad match, phrase match, or exact match.

A broad match keyword means that your ads will show if the keywords are used in the search, regardless of the order. If you add “Nike running shoes,” for example, your ad will show up for people who type “Nike running shoes,” “Nike free running shoes,” and “where can I buy Nike shoes for running.”

A broad match means that your ad will show in a search so long as the keywords you entered show up in the search in one form or another. To enter a broad match term into AdWords, simply enter the term without any kind of punctuation before or after the term. In this example, you would simply type nike running shoes to add it as a broad match keyword.

A phrase match keyword means the keyword phrase needs to show up in the search as a complete phrase in the order you enter it. Using the same example as above, when you enter “Nike running shoes” as a phrase match keyword, then your ad will show up for terms like “Nike running shoes” and “where can I buy Nike running shoes.”

An exact match keyword works just like it sounds. The term being searched needs to exactly match the keyword that you entered in AdWords. Thus, if you have “Nike running shoes” as an exact match, it will show up only when someone searches for “Nike running shoes” and won’t show up even if someone searches for “Nike running shoes for sale.”

Mistake #3: Not Using Negative Keywords

Another mistake people make is not using negative keywords. AdWords allows you to use negative keywords as a way to exclude keywords that are not a good match for your product.

For example, if you own an e-retail store that sells designer women’s shoes but not athletic shoes, then you won’t want your ads to show up on searches for “women’s running shoes” but do want them to show up on searches for “women’s shoes.” Thus, you can add “running” as a negative keyword, and your ads won’t be shown for any searches that include the word “running.”