How To Get A Better Clickthrough Rate With Google Adwords



by Marsha K. Wright


Creating highly effective ads on Google Adwords is an ongoing process, and you'll probably spend weeks and months tweaking analyzing your strategy as you build your campaign. Still, you don't have to settle or a trial and error process every step of the way, especially when it comes to increasing your clickthrough rate (CTR). Internet marketing strategists such as Perry Marshall and countless others have already harnessed the power of Google Adwords by employing several strategies that generate results from the start.

For those who seek to increase their clickthrough rates, here are some of the strategies that master marketers have learned through experience:

Don't Forget About Negative Keywords

Running keyword reports on a regular basis is vital for your success with Google Adwords, and there are several free and paid keyword selector tools available online. Wordtracker is one of them, and offers both a free keyword selector tool and a paid subscriptions service. You can populate a spreadsheet with all relevant keywords and key phrases, but these are also a valuable resource for identifying negative keywords for your specific market.

Negative keywords and key phrases are those that are related to your specific niche, product or service, but do not offer immediate value. After identifying what your ideal customer may be searching for, you'll be able to conjecture the specific key terms (positive keywords) they may use to find you. For example, if you are selling referral tracking software, you want to identify customers who are typing in key phrases such as 'buy referral tracking software', 'using referral tracking software', etc. Those who might type in 'free referral tracking software' do not fall under your target market radar, and need to be eliminated. You can employ this strategy with every niche and keyword list, paring it down until you have a very refined, highly targeted listing of keywords that apply only to your ideal customer.

Hone Your Ads Using Split Testing Strategies

Split testing is commonly used in offline marketing strategies to test the market. For example, a company may send out two different direct mail pieces to select customers to gauge response rates, or they may create two different promotional offers to see which message or campaign is more effective than the other.

Just as in traditional marketing media, split testing proves a valuable ally for marketers developing a Google Adwords campaign. Once you've decided which keywords you should and should not employ in your attempts to reach the ideal audience, you can then turn your attention to the specifics of how these keywords are used, testing slightly different phrasings in Adword ads and seeing which are most effective.

With the aforementioned strategies of first determining which 'negative keywords' simply take up space without attracting your target audience, and proceeding to split test different versions of your ad, you can build your Adwords ads into an unbeatable online marketing campaign. These two key steps are two of the biggest reasons that the pioneers in online marketing, including Perry Marshall, have found Adwords such an exceptionally effective medium in which to market. By following the advice of this article, you can maximize your ads' clickthrough rates and achieve the results that the Internet marketing greats have in the past.




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