AdWords MENA Blog: AdWords for Beginners

AdWords MENA Blog

AdWords for Beginners - Part 1

Monday, February 28, 2011

Have you just started advertising with AdWords or just need repetition in the basics of the program? If so, this is the blog series for you. In this series we will go through different parts of what’s important to think about when you’re new to advertising with AdWords, and today we’re starting to talk about keywords and how you should manage them in your account.

A keyword is the term you’re using (word or phrase) in order for your ad to be triggered among the sponsored links. It’s important to think about what search terms the customer are using when they’re browsing the web, and use this as inspiration for the keywords you will add in the account. Once you have added new keywords in your account, there are some rules of thumb that are important to bear in mind.

When the keywords start receiving traffic pause keywords that have more than 100 impressions but at the same time a CTR lower than 1%. Otherwise this may impact the quality score of the keyword negatively.

Use 2-3 words per keyword, since one word is often too general and won’t be specific enough. E.g. if you’re selling used cars it’s good to have the phrase “used car” as a keyword, instead of just “car”. If you simply have “car” as a keyword, you can trigger anything from “toy car” to “new car” or “car painting”.

Use keywords that is used in the ad text and that strongly relates to the ad, the product and the landing page you will advertise for.

With a higher Quality Score, you can also advertise more with the same budget.

Write the keywords in both singular and plural in order to cover all the search terms.

What are the benefits from doing this? Initially, more specific keywords with higher relevance create more clicks which lead to more customers visiting your site. This also means that your marketing is more targeted, and that you’re paying for clicks made by customers that are relevant to your business. Furthermore, this gives you a greater control over the message delivered.

We hope that these tips will be useful for you when advertising with AdWords. You can find more information regarding how you can build an effective keyword list here. Also, you can find more inspiration regarding how to improve your keyword list through looking at this free video tutorial from AdWords Online Classroom. Last but not least, you can find more helpful information about this in the AdWords Beginner’s Guide in the AdWords Help center.

Keep your eyes open for the next post in this blog series for beginners.

Posted by Omar Abou Selman - Google AdWords MENA
Written by Kristin Sarstedt – the Inside AdWords Team