Since launch of Google AdWords in February 2002, Google has clearly become main provider of paid search advertising. Because Google is special in everything it does, let’s take a look at Google AdWords more closely.

2.1 How Google AdWords work

As mentioned earlier, Google’s sponsored listings appear on top and on right-hand side of regular search results.

The basic concept of PPC bidding is that advertisers bid for particular search terms (= keywords). The highest bidder gets his/her advertisement displayed at top of sponsored listings next to Google’s search results. The second highest bidder gets next sponsored listing and so on.

However, Google Adwords work differently than most of other Pay-Per-Click search engines such as Overture, FindWhat etc. Google does not simply put highest bidder’s advertisement at top of list. It also ranks advertisements according to their popularity. Therefore, if more people click on an advertisement it will get higher ranking and better position.

In conclusion, your ad's position is determined by following factors:

your daily budget maximum cost-per-click your ad's actual click through rate and your average ad’s position. From above, you can not directly control your ad's actual click through rate and average position. Therefore managing your keywords on Google AdWords is a big challenge and usually consumes a great deal of time.

If you do not manage your keyword bids properly, you will waste your advertising money on Google Adwords. A good way to get around this is to use automated bid management software available on market today. In general, those tools allow you to control your ads listing based on rules you specify.

When you shop around you will notice that there are very few tools that support Google AdWords. From those they do, there is one available for free trial at http://www.keywordbidmaximizer.com/bidmaximizer.

2.2 Pay-per-click copywriting tips on Google

The purpose of your advertising on Google is naturally to increase your sales. Since you are paying for each visitor landing on your website you obviously wish to convert them in paying customers. Please keep in mind that more important than number of impressions (=clicks) is conversion rate. To drive your conversion rate to maximum it is advised to pre-qualify click with a well composed ad copy. Below are some tips to help you improve your ads:

» Specific and Relevant Keywords

Be specific and relevant to your business and offers. Avoid general keywords – they generate more ad impressions but tend to be less relevant. For example, rather than “flower” consider “birthday roses bouquet”. More targeted keywords attract more qualified buyers.

Also, your can increase your ad exposure – without sacrificing relevance – by adding alternate phrasings, spelling variations, plurals and singulars, and keywords similar or related to those on your master keyword list.

» Target geographical segments

Consider using geographic keywords to target a local or regional audience. If you sell roses in Tokio, replace “roses” with “roses Tokio”. This way you will avoid any irrelevant pitches to search users in New York and Sydney. You can also target your campaign by country and by language to help focus your message on audience you wish to serve.

» Target ad delivery with keyword matching options

Google offers different keyword matching options to refine your targeting:

Broad match - displays your ad when all words in your keyword appear in search query. For example for keywords “birthday cards” your ad will be shown if users search for keywords “birthday” and “cards” in any order, and even if query includes other terms.

Phrase match - displays your ad when all words in your keyword appear in same order, for example “birthday cards”. Your ad will also be shown with other terms in query like “birthday cards for girls” but will not be shown if users search for “cards for birthday”.

Exact match - displays your ad when all words in your keyword appear in same order, and without any other terms in query.

Negative keywords – excludes searches for which your ad would be irrelevant. For example, if your keyword is “birthday cards” and your negative keyword is “-girls”, your ad will not be shown if users search for “birthday cards for girls”.

» Choose carefully landing pages

If users are interested in your offer they click on your ad. It is your job to send them to a relevant destination page to find out more about your product or service. When tailoring your ads to a specific audience, be sure that destination page on your site fits goal of campaign.

3. Optimization Versus Paid Advertising

Paid search advertising offers companies an excellent solution to drive traffic to their websites almost immediately. From short term approach, pay per click presents a smart way to cover a gap between campaign launch and achieving desired rankings results. The long term approach suggests pay per click as an alternative in situations when a website shows a poor performance in search results in general. However, once you stop paying for positions, traffic stops.

Search engine optimization is a fundamental part of internet marketing mix. It requires constant updating and continuous attention of website content for solid, long-term effective results.

Therefore, if you use paid search advertising and search engine optimisation together as an integrated strategy, you have an excellent chance to reach greatest number of online users.

To fully optimize your website, you can tweak source code of page. The first step is to insert keyword in title tag. (This is what is shown in results of a search engine when your site is listed)

5) Insert your keywords in description tag: The description Meta tag is almost as valuable as title tag. The information in this tag is listed directly below title tag in search engine results. As a result, a good description can make your website stand out from other listings. To get prospect to click on your site, it is important to write a snappy description while using your keyword.

6) Insert them into your keywords tag: Like title and description tags, keyword tags are used to help search engines understand content of your web page. Although this Meta tag has become less popular, it doesn’t hurt to put your keywords here.

7) Place your keyword in header: When writing actual text of your site, first part should be headline. Whenever a search engine scans your site, it rates all words in headline as being more important then rest of web copy. To take advantage of this, you should have your keyword in page headline. But, since header tag (h1) is quite large, you should format it so that it is smaller.

8) Write your keyword enriched web copy: Now that you have set up structure of your page, you can write your web copy. While creating text, you want to include majority of keywords at top and bottom of page. In addition, keyword should be included a few times in middle. Basically, common saying is that keyword density should resemble an hour glass shape.

The total web copy of your page should be about 300-500 words. Also, keyword should be included about 5-12% of total words of page. The percentage varies according to each search engine, so you might want to play around till you find best results.

If you follow all these steps, you will definitely see an improvement in search engine rankings for your keywords. The best part is that you do not have to spend any money on expensive search engine optimizers!

Good luck!

Scott J. Patterson brought his website to the top of many search engines for important keywords. To find out how he did this AND also how he created his online store with NO computer experience, be sure to check out a Fr** copy of his ebook: