When we are setting up a new Google Adwords campaign it is important to be as specific as possible with the ad and the keywords that you select. We found that some of the biggest frustrations with Google Adwords is what words should people select to advertise on and then once they have those words what ad should they put with those words.

So we have the two problems:

  • Word Choice
  • Ad matching those words

Let’s keep this as simple as possible. Sometimes it is easier to write the ad before the keyword selection. You can always write the ad and then modify the key words.

Lets look at the ad that above. The ad is for Spring Valley Homes. Now The web address has CA in it so it is the Spring Valley in California and not the one in Indiana.

Ad Matching those keywords

When we hit a wall with keywords selection we will write an ad first and then find the words that will go along with that ad. In the example above we have an ad for Spring Valley Homes. It is simple and to the point.

Word Choice

This is usually the harder part of the equation. So in our ad example above we mention Spring Valley Homes. A few rules for adding keywords to an adgroup are that you don’t want more than 30 keywords. This actually makes it easier because the ad will match better to a smaller set of words.

A sample word list for the ad above would be as follows:

  • Spring Valley Home Sales
  • “Spring Valley Home Sales”
  • [Spring Valley Home Sales]
  • Spring Valley home sale
  • [Spring Valley home sale]
  • Home Spring Valley sale
  • Sale Spring Valley Home
  • Spring Valley CA Home
  • [Spring Valley CA Home]
  • Spring Valley CA Home Sale

For why we use brackets or quotes see the post on match types. As you can see above the variances in the keywords for that ad are small. You are always better off having less keywords in an adgroup than more as it will increase performance of your ad because the ad will be more specific.

We hope this helps you focus your ads and your keywords and remember to take it step by step to make things easier. Implementing the strategies above helped many of our ads increase conversion by over 10% and increase Click Through Rate 30%.