Standard Size I’ll admit I made this mistake. I was too caught up in creating a really nice looking design that I made something that was not standard size. Now it wasn’t much off norm but when I found out I promptly changed size. Keep to standards. I know that if your ad is slightly larger it may get more attention but if we all start doing this where will it stop? Creating an ad that is larger than standard is not way to get attention. And in many places they will require you to keep to industry standard.

Content This must be short, simple, and very direct. You’ve really got to simplify this. I know that this is hard but there is not a lot of room on these banner ads and more information that you try to cram on there less likely that someone will read, or try to read it. Keep it to a few words, if you can’t manage to say what you want in a few words enlist help of friends and family, ask them to define what it is that you do, or sell in five words or less. You may get a really clever saying to use by doing this.

Adwords is also a great place to drain your advertising dollars if you're not careful. Like any other automated system, it requires constant feeding and attention to keep you from wondering just why you spent hundreds of dollars and received a paltry return on your investment. Here's 7 great ways I've found to do just that, (and yes I've been guilty of several of these to one degree or another.)

1. - Not getting enough keywords, and I don't mean just numbers. Good ones. A lot of people run a search on their favorite keyword tool and pick top ten or twenty words or phrases getting most traffic, thinking somehow that THEY will beat all others using these keywords. There is a reason why these keywords are so popular: everybody and their grandmother are bidding on them! A much better approach is to come up with at least a couple hundred, better a couple thousand words that you have a shot at getting a high ranking for. After all, if you have 1800 keywords and can get a top 8 (first page) position for most of them, you'll see a lot more clicks than you will chasing top dollar words. If you get a hundred of lower tier words giving you a couple of visitors a day, well, you do math. Not only that, but often less expensive words are altogether more specific, delivering far more targeted visitors.

2. - Not creating adgroups. You should use this function! It can help you focus your advertising much more effectively. By arranging your keywords in tightly focused groups of 10- 30 phrases, and writng a keyword-specific headline for each of them, you have a much greater ability to see what's working and what's not. Also gives you a chance to test different headlines and text copy.

3. - No negative keywords. This you gotta do. And it's so easy. Simply add -free (or whatever else you don't want associated with your searches) and you won't end up paying for a lot of clicks for people who weren't interested in first place.