# Google Adwords -- couple of tricks



## damion (Sep 8, 2005)

easy,



just joined up after finding the info on spreadshirt / cafepress incredibly useful... so thought i'd share this


it's a copy/paste of some stuff i found while trying to find out how to "cheat" adwords... okay, not cheat adwords but at least to understand how the system works, and to pay it to your advantage. 


i cant remember where it came from but some SEO forum or other... 


While the Overture tools he mentions are useful to suss out what keywords people are searching on, Overture isn't worth the money IMO (unless you're hell bent on running it against google adwords, in which case you WILL conclude that adwords is better value, and brings you more traffic.)


I've done Search Engine Optimisation on about 7 sites, for work, for my own ones, and for mates, and the ideas below seem to work well. Always overpay at the start -- and you can't take too much notice of what he says about writing relevant ads. One ad per keyword is ideal... time consuming, but ideal!


Hope it's useful for ya's..... feel free to post questions/comments below, I'll help all i can. 







> General Info
> You must research, research, research before starting any PPC campaign. You need to KNOW what keywords people are searching for and how much they are searching for them. This will save you time and money when you setup your PPC Campaign. Use tools like WordTracker.com, Overture Bid Tool, Overture Keyword Tool, and AdWords Keyword Tool.
> 
> I suggest setting up your campaigns, writing your ads, and sorting your keywords before ever signing up for a PPC Account. Do this over 3-4 days, making sure you have everything covered before going in to setup your campaign. If you don't do the research and planning needed, you will get sloppy when you are actaully setting up the campaign and you will miss very important keywords.
> ...


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## wcthrill (Oct 8, 2005)

really useful info...did you know if you goto google suggest it wil let you know how many searches were done on a specific word?


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## sarafina (Jul 27, 2005)

wcthrill said:


> really useful info...did you know if you goto google suggest it wil let you know how many searches were done on a specific word?


What is Google suggest?


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

A search of google looking for 'google suggest' brought up this:
http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en


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## sarafina (Jul 27, 2005)

Thanks for the link Rodney. Pretty neat.


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## bjmason32 (Jul 1, 2005)

Do not overlook Overture. I disagree with damion's assertion that adwords is much more valuable. I think it depends on the keywords you're fighting for. Personally, our business sees much higher conversions through Yahoo Search Marketing.


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## Classic Rat (Feb 28, 2007)

I just started playing around with add words and this is a very helpful post 
Thanks!


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## CypherNinja (May 5, 2007)

I'm not using Adwords yet, but this thread just got filed!


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## rejoice (Jun 7, 2007)

Good thread and I liked the google link. Excellent!


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## Annushka (Jul 26, 2006)

Rodney said:


> A search of google looking for 'google suggest' brought up this:
> Google


The number that appears next to the word you type in the suggest box - is that the # of results that would come up if you were searching for it? Or is that the # of times that word has been searched for by others? 
Can you get reports from Google that tell you how many times specific words have been searched for? Can it be broken down by time periods (past month, year etc)?


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## Rodney (Nov 3, 2004)

> The number that appears next to the word you type in the suggest box - is that the # of results that would come up if you were searching for it?


It's the number of results that would come up if you search for it. That gives you an idea of which terms are more popular (the ones with more results are more popular...searched for and used more often).

It can help you figure out which version of a spelling variant is more popular (like t-shirts versus teeshirts).



> Can you get reports from Google that tell you how many times specific words have been searched for? Can it be broken down by time periods (past month, year etc)?


No, most search engines keep that information private.

They do have a "trends" feature for Adwords advertiser that will give you sort of a graphical representation of the popularity of a keyword.

Overture has a feature that will tell you how many times a keyword has been searched for on their search engine (yahoo) in the past month. The accuracy is a bit hit and miss, but it can be a good starting research point:
Keyword Selector Tool

There are also third party services that can help you determine the popularity of a keyword, like wordtracker.

If you're going to be using Google Adwords, I would suggest reading over the book: Amazon.com: Winning Results with Google AdWords: Books: Andrew Goodman


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## Annushka (Jul 26, 2006)

Thanks a lot Rodney. That's a really neat tool - Keyword selector. Even if it's not 100% accurate it gives you some idea of what ppl are looking for online.


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## supergibbo (Mar 31, 2008)

Hey I notice these threads are quite old...just curious to know if these Adwords tips a still relevant or is there some 08 tips out there I should know about?


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## sonambulo (Sep 22, 2007)

interested myself


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## brand resistant (Mar 21, 2008)

supergibbo said:


> Hey I notice these threads are quite old...just curious to know if these Adwords tips a still relevant or is there some 08 tips out there I should know about?


Hey there, I've been using adwords for a couple of months now and have been tweaking the campaign almost daily. Tips, 1, 2, 4 and 5 are definitely still relevant. I am just about to start testing ad variations as suggested in tip 3. I have a low daily budget though just whilst I'm refining the campaign.


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## BrandOfTheFree (Feb 1, 2008)

Im trying to optimize our adwords. If you guys are making each keyword its own ad (or 4-5 keywords) do you overlap keywords at all or make sure you only use a specific keyword in a single ad and not in multiple ads?


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## HeatherLHC (Aug 17, 2007)

My google browser on the toolbar automatically makes suggestions for search words. It is very cool. It remembers what you search for and will suggest based on that, as well. I just tried the google feature to include your banner as an ad campaign. I have that one rotating with a regular ad. Seems to be doing pretty well.


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## brand resistant (Mar 21, 2008)

BrandOfTheFree said:


> Im trying to optimize our adwords. If you guys are making each keyword its own ad (or 4-5 keywords) do you overlap keywords at all or make sure you only use a specific keyword in a single ad and not in multiple ads?


I don't overlap keywords in multiple ads, just variations of the same keyword within one ad. It seems to generate the highest CTR, which google likes.


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