The Top 10 Google Adwords Newbie Mistakes

Google Adwords is a very good service for people to advertise their product or service on the Internet. Do this right you can gain a lot of traffic without spending too much on the advertising cost, and gain profit from the traffic. Do this wrong you can lose a lot of money without getting much traffic to your website.

Here’s a list of the top 10 Google Adwords mistakes:

Number 10: Allowing Google to manage your bids by not disabling Budget Optimizer. This is often a killer for people who first start with Google Adwords. Because this is turned on by default and it sounds great by having “Google to manage all of your bids”, Newbie(s) usually leave it on by default. Now because Newbie(s) usually don’t have any idea on keyword research they often have Google bid on competitive keywords, paying few bucks per click. This sure drains the budget fast.

Number 9: Not having appealing ads. A good ad pulls interest from people searching on Google; it leaves people with question marks in their minds on problems they have so that people tend to want to click on the ad to have their questions answered.

Number 8: Lying on their ads in order to obtain more clicks. If the ad does not reflect the content of the landing page, the visitors will exit the site immediately because they are not seeing what they are expecting. For example, many put the word “FREE” in their ad to attract visitors but there’s nothing free within the content of the landing page.

Number 7: Not targeting the right people. Many newbie(s) start by targeting the entire world thinking “Oh the more countries my ad is exposed to the more clicks I will get”. The rate at which your visitor becomes a customer (CR = Conversion Rate) is different in different countries. For example, if your product or service is in English, you might occasionally get clicks from people who can’t really understand English if you target countries that don’t have English as the primary language. They click and leave because they can’t fully understand what you are trying to present so your product or service is not convincing to them.

Number 6: Not having a quality landing page. In order for Google Adwords to work and make profit for you, your landing page needs to have quality content that will actually convert your visitors into customers. Google Adwords will get you the traffic but it’s up to you to convert your visitors into your customers.

Number 5: Giving up early. People who are new to Google Adwords often become frustrated after spending money in advertising and not receiving any returns. People who succeed are the ones who are willing to experience and learn continuously.

Number 4: Having too much keywords in an ad group. Google does not like a list of 100 keywords all together in one ad group. If you do that it will hurt the quality score of your campaigns. Quality Score for Google and the search network is a dynamic metric assigned to each of your keywords. It’s calculated using a variety of factors and measures how relevant your keyword is to your ad group and to a user’s search query. The higher a keyword’s Quality Score, the lower its cost-per-clicks (CPCs) and the better its ad position.

Number 3: Not having enough campaigns. Most newbie(s) start with Google Adwords and focus on one campaign, trying it for weeks wasting money. A lot of people who are successful with Google Adwords only have approximately 10%~20% rate of success when they launch new campaigns. The rate of success on new campaigns depends on:

1) How competitive the keyword bidding market is

2) The quality of the landing page

3) The quality and search volume of keywords

4) The quality of ads

5) The amount of money you spend on bidding and your daily budget

People who are new to Google Adwords should launch a few campaigns a week to experience and get comfortable with Google Adwords. That will accelerate the learning curve.

Number 2: Not having enough related keywords. Most newbie(s) start by adding variations to a few keywords related to their product or service. For example, for the keyword fat, Newbie(s) will most likely make variations to it like “fat loss, lose fat fast, fat reduction, easy fast loss, burn fat…etc.” They are missing out a huge section of potential traffic.

What if you ask yourself this question: “How many kinds of fat are there?” You can then develop a “wide list” that’s related to fat – “stomach fat, belly fat, upper arms fat, thigh fat, back fat, booty fat, bat wings, body fat” At that point, you can apply the variations onto these different forms of fat, giving you a list of 100+ keywords related to fat.

Number 1: Not having the keywords in the ads. In the search engine world everything is about relevance. If you have the keywords in your ads Google will reward that and you will pay less and have your ad ranked higher. Most newbie(s) get carried away by having appealing subjects on their ads, but they are paying more for the clicks.