Google Adwords Keyword Tool – Making It Work For You

The Google Adwords keyword tool is a very well known, and highly used, tool for many online marketers. Many people use it for more than just running Pay Per Click Adwords campaigns. You can use this tool to narrow down a list of great keywords for your article marketing and search engine optimization needs to name just two.

When it comes to search engines Google is definitely one of the ‘big boys’ and since they have so much traffic on their search engine every single day, it only stands to reason that you can get very comprehensive keyword lists from their keyword tool.

When you are starting your keyword search, no matter what you are doing with those keywords, it’s usually a good idea to start with a fairly broad phrase. Once you’ve gotten a list you can narrow down on some of those terms.

To illustrate, let’s say you’re doing a search for the term ‘dog toys’ you will get many results and these results will be things like ‘tough dog toys’ and ‘interactive dog toys’. Then you can pick a few of the broad results and narrow those down further.

Take the term ‘tough dog toys’. When you do a search for that term you’ll get even more, and more refined, results such as ‘indestructible dog toys’. You’ll also get other results that may or may not work for you. Things such as ‘dog treats’ or ‘dog beds’.

With the more ‘honed down’ phrases, you’ll notice that they don’t get as many searches monthly as the broader phrases. That’s ok. Actually, in some ways, that’s better. Unless you have a huge advertising budget it’s unlikely that you can afford the high bid prices for the broad term of ‘dog toys’. The estimated Cost Per Click (CPC) is likely to be higher.

When you start paying over one dollar per click, you had better have a very highly converting offer. If you can convert one out of every ten visitors into a paying customer and you get over %10 per sale that’s not bad. But if you have to spend %50 for one sale and you only make %10, that’s not good. You won’t be able to stay so upside down in your advertising and be profitable, let alone stay in business for long.

Remember though that the ‘estimated average cost per click’ is just that: an estimate. Google, and the other search engines, seem to love to make things as complicated as possible. They will use their own, and usually secret, parameters for determining how much an advertiser will pay per click.

Generally, if you have a high quality score you can pay less per click for a given keyword than your competitor who has a low quality score will pay for the same keyword. It’s complicated, I know. That’s the reason you need to make sure you fully understand the ins and outs of PPC before you dive into the deep end of the pool.

Even if you do know what you’re doing there will be some ‘tweaking’ that will need to be done to optimize your results. Make sure you have enough money to run your campaigns long enough to do the ‘tweaking’ and really get the most out of your adwords campaign and the Google Adwords keyword tool.

Google Adwords Qualified Company – Check Them Out

Many internet marketers understand the value of having a Google Adwords pay per click campaign. If done right, this type of traffic generation can insure a virtually never ending stream of extremely targeted visitors to your website. The problem is, that it’s very rarely done right because there are just so many facets to running a successful campaign. Before you hire a company to help you run your Adwords campaigns make sure they are a Google adwords qualified company.

While any company who has this certification is by no means endorsed by Google, it is an indication that they’ve spent the time to learn the techniques needed to run a successful campaign. Basically it’s a good starting point but before you turn your hard earned money over to anyone it’s up to you to make sure that they really are qualified.

Some of the basic steps that must be completed in order to gain certification are:

1. You must sign up for the Adwords qualified individual program and remain in good standing. This is basically just a promise that you will abide by the terms of service Google establishes.

2. You need to maintain at least one Adwords account, it can be yours or for someone who has hired you. You need to maintain this account for at least 3 months. This is a win/ win for the person undergoing the certification process and Google. It allows you to gain in your knowledge base and allows Google to ‘see you in action’ and make sure you know what you’re doing. During this time you will need to maintain at least $1,000 USD total spent through the Adwords account.

As with all things internet, and especially with Google, things online are constantly changing and evolving. It’s for that reason that Google improved the certification program after implementing changes in the Adwords platform. It was their way to make sure that everyone who had the certification is up to date on the latest Adwords features and policies.

The new certification process requires the person taking the certification to not only pass the fundamentals exam but they must also take, and pass, one of three more advanced components. This is again, just a way to ensure the continued quality of anyone who is advertising them self as a Google certified professional.

Once an individual or company completes the certification process they can display the Google GAP logo on their site. Google also helps them promote themselves by creating a profile for any individual or company that has completed the training.

Besides the huge advantage to anyone hiring these highly trained Adwords professionals for their own traffic generation, the holder of these certificates is also rewarded with many perks. A badge for their website, a profile listing them as a Google partner on Googles search directory, they can also gain access to a lot of training and development events that the average customer simply does not get access to.

So, before you hire a company to manage your Adwords account for you, make sure that they are qualified. Look for a google adwords qualified company.

Adwords Keyword Research – Get It Right Or Go Broke

Adwords is the Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising option from Google. All the major search engines have their own version of PPC advertising. The basic concept is this: you place an ad that targets a specific keyword related to the product, service, or website you are trying to get traffic to. When someone types in that keyword into the search engine they will see ads at the top, bottom and sides of the results page (if you’ve done it properly one of those ads will be yours).

They will click on an ad and be taken to the website of whoever placed that ad. The advertiser will then be charged, hence the term pay per click. In order to make this work you need to choose the keywords you’re going to use carefully, and that’s where the adwords keyword research tool can come in handy.

Even if you’re not running a PPC campaign, you’ll still need a list of good keyword to use in all of your online marketing. Keywords are used in virtually every form of online advertising there is. They are needed for Search Engine Optimization (SEO), article marketing and PPC. So having access to a cutting edge keyword research is vital.

And who better to trust your searches to than the online giant, Google? The keyword tool is free to use. It’s also easy to use. Just type in the base keyword you want more information on.

For example, let’s say you are promoting dog grooming equipment. You would go to the keyword tool, type in ‘dog grooming equipment’ and let the results load. There are several fields you can either enable or disable. You can get information on the number of monthly searches, the estimated cost per click (CPC), the amount of competition to name just a few.

You will also see a list of hundreds of other keywords combination’s all derived from your base keyword search. I personally find that to be one of the biggest benefits of this tool Sometimes I just can’t think of all the word combinations that people might be searching for, so having this tool show me other possible keywords is extremely helpful.

Another neat thing you can do is to type in the URL of a website that sells the same types of products you do. You will see the results and you can get ideas of what keywords they are using, this is really helpful if a certain website is ranking well. It can give you a glimpse into what they’re doing with their SEO.

Make sure to focus more on 3, 4, and 5 words keyword phrases (long tail keywords) since they will get less competition. I know many people like to go out and target the one and two words keywords that get hundreds of thousands of monthly searches, but that is a waste of time. Unless you’re incredibly lucky you won’t be able to compete or get ranked for those keywords. You’re better off finding slightly less searched for terms that you may actually be able to get a ranking for.

Hey, take advantage of all the internet has to offer, that includes the many free tools that you can use to grow your business such as the Google Adwords keyword research tool.

Adwords Account – How To Avoid The Nightmare

Unfortunately, when you’re a fairly small fish in a big pond you have to play by the rules or you will get kicked out of the pond. No where is this more true than when it comes to your adwords account. Google is one mighty big fish and what they say goes, period. If you want to advertise on their Pay Per Click (PPC) network you had better be prepared to play by their rules or they will ban you and that will be one less stream of traffic you’ll be able to rely on.

Google Adwords can provide you with a ton of very qualified traffic, and it can do it pretty quickly, but it’s not without it’s pitfalls. One of the things Google really looks for these days is a quality site. The days of mediocre sites is gone. Google expects, and demands, quality sites for their searchers. If you don’t deliver you’ll be gone, there won’t be a negotiation, you’ll just be gone.

Google doesn’t have to explain why you’ve been banned either, and they won’t, one day you’ll have a successful campaign and the next you’ll be done and so will a big portion of your traffic (which is one reason why you should never rely on just one source of traffic for your site).

In order to avoid this nightmare scenario, it’s important you don’t do anything that would put Google on high alert. Here are a few things to keep in mind:

1. Carefully read and follow the terms of service that Google spells out when you sign up for your account. one of the most important things to remember is that you can not direct link your ad to an affiliate offer. You must drive the traffic to your own website where you can then direct them to your affiliate offer.

That is probably one of the most common mistakes people make. They think that Google is so big they won’t notice, and they may not, for a while. But when they do you’ll be banned. It’s just not worth the risk. Put up a great blog.

2. Make sure that the website you send your traffic to has some truly quality content. Don’t just throw up some dumb blog or website with one article on it and expect that that will be ok, it won’t. Again, Google’s main concern is for their customers and,newsflash, that’s not you. It’s the people who search online. If Google doesn’t think that their searchers will get what they’re looking for when they visit your site, they will ban you.

Hey, I don’t mean to scare you, I’m just trying to point out that you have to be careful when you’re dealing with ‘The Big G’. They have their rules and they expect you to follow them. Don’t forget, you’re just a visitor in their kingdom and they expect you to carry your fair share of the weight and follow their rules. When you set up your

adwords account make sure you read, understand and follow all the rules to avoid the nightmare from ‘Big G’.

Adwords Keyword Suggestion Tool – Using It Right

The adwords keyword suggestion tool is used by most internet marketers, even if they aren’t running a pay per click campaign. This tool is recognized as one of the premier keyword tools around. I mean after all, Google is pretty much top dog when it comes to search engines so who wouldn’t want to get keyword information directly from them?

Picking the right keywords to target for your pay per click campaign is one of the most important elements you will have to consider. There is a fine line when it comes to choosing which keywords to use. If you use a one or two word keyword you will likely see that they get a ton of monthly searches, but they will also be very, very difficult to be competitive with. For most of the smaller online marketers the bid prices for those keywords will simply be too expensive to be profitable.

For most of us, the ‘long tailed’ keywords will work much better. These are actually keyword phrases that have 3 or more words in them. They can still get a great number of monthly searches (though not as high as the one or two word keywords) but they will usually have much less competition.

By using the keyword tool you will have access to a lot of helpful information. You will not only get a list of the top keyword phrases and the average number of monthly searches they get but you will also be able to find out what the average cost per click (average CPC) price will be for those keywords.

Obviously, the cost per click will just be an estimate since the popularity of the keyword is only one of the elements that determines how much you will pay for each click, but it’s a place to start. You’ll know right away that if you have a daily budget of %50 that a keyword with an average CPC of %10 will probably be out of your budget even though it might not really cost quite that much it’s more than likely still going to be too expensive for you.

The keyword tool will also give you and idea (it’s just a rough estimate, don’t expect it to be exact) of the amount of competition a given keyword has. That can come in very handy when you’re planning your campaigns.

Another cool thing about this keyword tool is that you can type in your base keyword and be provided with other keywords phrases that are relevant that you may not have even thought of. It’s virtually impossible for us to think of all keywords associated with our niche market, so it’s nice to have a keyword tool that makes suggestions to give us more ideas.

Besides the sheer volume of potential customers online the neat thing about the internet is the vast array of free tools you can use for your business. When it comes to finding good keywords the adwords keyword suggestion tool will work very well.. and it won’t cost you a dime. Use these tips to get the most out of it for you.