Google Hacks, 2nd Edition

Get the Most out of AdWords

Guest commentary by Andrew Goodman of Traffick on how to write great AdWords.

AdWords (https://adwords.google.com) is just about the sort of advertising program that you might expect to roll out of the big brains at Google. The designers of the advertising system have innovated thoroughly to provide precise targeting at low cost with less work—it really is a good deal. The flipside is that it takes a fair bit of savvy to get a campaign to the point where it stops failing and starts working.

For larger advertisers, AdWords Select is a no-brainer. Within a couple of weeks, a larger advertiser will have enough data to decide whether to significantly expand their ad program on AdWords Select or perhaps to upgrade to a premium sponsor account.

I’m going to assume that you have a basic familiarity with how cost-per-click advertising works. AdWords Select ads currently appear next to search results on Google.com (and some international versions of the search engine) and near search results on AOL and a few other major search destinations. There are a great many quirks and foibles to this form of advertising. My focus here will be on some techniques that can turn a mediocre, nonperforming campaign into one that actually makes money for the advertiser while conforming to Google’s rules and guidelines.

One thing I should make crystal clear is that advertising with Google bears no relationship to having your web site’s pages indexed in Google’s search engine. The search ...