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graphic3
08-13-2008, 12:10 PM
how successful have any of you been using this tool?

- I currently design logos and provide premade logo designs , so i was wanting to hear some feedback on which keywords i should bid on and how much you all think i should bid

thanks

i'm completely new to ADwords

KristineS
08-13-2008, 12:20 PM
I've used it briefly in the past. I'd like to get into it more heavily but haven't had the time.

One thing I noticed was that you really needed to keep an eye on the performance of your key words and weed out non-performing ones quickly. Otherwise you ended up spending money on keywords that weren't generating any traffic.

Adwords also has a keyword tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal). I wasn't sure if you knew about that.

billbenson
08-13-2008, 04:16 PM
I don't know how successful you will be with graphic design via adwords. Start with a low daily budget. you may only want to run them for an hour or two a day until you get things refined to keep from spending to much. I'd plan on 6 months to get a decent campaign in place.

The basic idea is a lot of ads, I have several hunderd in mine. 20 or so keywords per ad (I usually toss in a bunch of keywords at first and then delete the ones that google doesn't like). Optimize your ad for seo that matches the seo on the landing page.

Keep an eye on your stats and look for searches that aren't relevant. Add those in as negative keywords. That means your ad won't be shown for searches for that key word / phrase. Just keep tweaking and adding new ads.

The searches in your stats may give you ideas for new ads. You probably want some very niche sort of ads to keep costs down.

Remember, all products aren't necessarily suited for adwords campaigns. My average cpc is about 0.25 and I rarely bid over 0.50.

vangogh
08-14-2008, 03:39 AM
The first thing you want to do before setting up a campaign is some keyword research. You want to find all the different ways someone might refer to your services.

For example I went to the Free WordTracker keyword tool (http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/keyword-suggestion-tool.htm) (they offer a paid version which provides a lot more information) and typed in 'logo design' Here are a few of the other phrases people searched for.

1952 logo design
367 logo designs
318 custom logo design
202 church logo design
74 corporate logo design
65 company logo design
45 business logo design
39 affordable logo design
35 logo design online
30 fashion logo design
28 design logo
21 small business logo design
20 logo design firm
19 band logo design
19 custom logo design company
19 custom logo mascot design
19 logo design services
19 medical logo design
19 web and logo design

The numbers represent how many people searched for the phrase over a specific period of time. The numbers shouldn't be trusted as absolutes, but rather relatively to each other.

The list is hardly exhaustive. You could probably come up with thousands of related phrases.

The deeper you go with the phrases the less you'll likely have to bid, thought the less potential traffic a specific phrase can drive to your site.

One way to get started is to pick some phrases, bid on them and set your budget and see what happens. Test different ads against each other to see which gets more clicks and to see which leads to more sales. Organize your keywords into different groups so you could run different ads against each other.

Let the ads run and measure the results. Drop phrases that don't result in clicks or sales and add new phrases to the mix.

Read through AdWords Learning Center (http://www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/) to better understand how the system works so you can get a greater return from it.

I don't know that you have to start by setting a low budget. The more money you're willing to spend the sooner you'll see enough results to know how well you're doing. Of course if you don't feel comfortable spending a lot of money until you know it'll result in sales you could certainly start with a lower budget.

Definitely go through the information at the Learning Center. There's a lot there and by the time you get through all of it you should have a good idea how to get started.

Remember that traffic doesn't automatically mean sales. You still need to do things on your site to turn visitors into paying customers.

Research Keywords
Learn how AdWords works
Set up a campaign
Test and Measure your results.

yankeerudy
08-16-2008, 11:17 AM
I've been hip-deep in Adwords for a while and have some pointers for you.

First, get yourself a copy of Adwords for Dummies. It's a good resource for most of the basics and it has lots of good suggestions.

As Steve said, do your keyword research. Wordtracker, Adwords, and others have tools to use for this; search for "keyword tools" and you'll find plenty of blogs/forums/tools.

For ads, I use a technique I call Highlandering (after the movie) where you create two ads and let them fight it out. After 50 or more clicks, pause the underperforming ad and replace it with something else. (Don't delete or edit ads, you want to see their performance numbers.)

For campaigns, be sure to use separate campaigns for search and content networks. (Search ads are what you see on the top and right of a google search result page, while content ads are the adsense ads you'll find on people's web pages.) It's important to remember that content ads are like newspaper ads -- the readers didn't ask for them or necessarily want them, so don't expect alot of clicks (and don't pay alot of money for them.) Search ads, on the other hand, are showing to people who are actively searching for something like what you have -- if you can attract their attention and promise something you can deliver, you'll see better click through rates.

There's alot of stuff going on here, so hop on your search engine and start doing your research.

Good luck with your campaigns.

vangogh
08-16-2008, 12:37 PM
Nice tips. I agree it's important to separate the search and content ads. I'd even suggest most people don't get involved with the content network until they already have some experience with AdWords.

I tend to think of the content network more as a branding thing where you may not be so worried about the clicks, but are more concerned with getting your name seen. In that light it could make more sense to use image ads on the content network than text ads.

graphic3
08-16-2008, 08:55 PM
wow very useful information...

so i didn't think about setting up 2 different ADs and watching which is receiving the most conversions for the specific keywords - i've been watching conversions for the keywords ... i guess i need different ads for different keywords/phrases that pertain to that phrase or keyword..

vangogh
08-16-2008, 09:19 PM
Yep and organize the phrases in different themes or groups. You might have one for premade logo and another for custom logo. I'm not saying that's the best division, but it's one that came to mind quickly.

And do use different ads for each grouping and point the ads to different pages on your site. Try to find the best page for a person to land on. If you have an ad for custom logos point that ad directly at your custom logo page. Don't point everything at your home page.

yankeerudy
08-22-2008, 11:52 AM
Then, to get really interesting, you can use the Website Optimizer to do some A/B testing of your landing page to see what works better.