July 24, 2012

How-to: 5 Tips to a Successful Google Search Campaign

Jul. 24, 2012 at 10:26 AM | By Susie Gotschall | Comment Count

There are more than 30 Billion Google search queries each month. While tapping into Google’s search network guarantees marketers far more reach than other search engines, the key to a successful Pay Per Click (PPC) search campaign lies in the campaign structure rather than with Google.

Tip #1:

Choose keywords for your ad campaign that are relevant to your schools website content while avoiding vague keywords. For example, if you are trying to optimize a search campaign for your accounting department, then select and bid on keywords and keyword phrases like “accounting bachelor degree”.

Tip #2:

Exclude negative keywords – keywords that “may produce unwanted impressions and clicks” and are irrelevant to your audience. A great example of this is the reality show: The Bachelor. On occasion, Google’s results may return information on The Bachelor for a search query looking for information on bachelor’s degrees. By removing negative keywords from your campaigns, you can eliminate potential confusion between search queries and results by Google.

*Bonus tip: Google offers free tools to determine relevant keywords. Entering your website into the tool will ping a search engine crawler to index your site and determine relevant keywords.

Tip #3:

Organize keywords and keyword phrases into “tight” ad groups. Each ad group should contain keywords with similar themes. This will enable you to write ads targeting a specific segment within your market.

Tip #4:

Networks and devices: Under your campaigns “Settings” tab, select “Google Search” as the network and “desktop and laptop devices” as the device. Then copy the entire campaign to target mobile devices.

Optimization and AdWords bidding vary between mobile and traditional devices, by creating two campaigns you are more likely to improve your clicks and impressions.

Tip 5:

For new campaigns, focus on maximum Cost Per Click (CPC) bids set manually. This will provide more control over your bidding and budgets during the initial month of a new campaign.

Got a Google AdWords question? Ask away in the comments section.