And Mike, wholly endorse the point about thinking ‘real person’ – with Adwords, its quite easy & quite common to start thinking about keywords as inanimate phrases rather than queries by real people!

To add to your tips…

I’d say its important to implement Conversion Tracking right from the beginning. Adwords is configured to ensure that ads with the best click through rates are shown more often. Besides getting traffic to your site, it also gets $$$ to Google’s bottomline.

However, the value of any traffic cannot be ascertained unless you have a conversion that you’re measuring (in our case, its filling out a simple form). As you get deeper into Adwords, you’ll often find that the best conversions don’t necessarily happen from the ads that have the best click-throughs. Here’s a simple illustration:

If your ad said FREE a couple of times in the headline, copy & URL, you’ll probably get a great Click Through Rate (CTR) & Google will show your ad more often than others’. However, your conversions (eg. form filled by serious business user) typically won’t be too great!

To cut a long story short:
Focus on ‘conversions’ – as you best define them! Starting this way helps ensure you stay focused as you get started with Adwords. And yes, implementing conversion tracking is quite easy to do with Adwords!

Good Luck.

Lakshmanan (Lux) Narayan
http://www.vembu.com

And Mike, wholly endorse the point about thinking ‘real person’ – with Adwords, its quite easy & quite common to start thinking about keywords as inanimate phrases rather than queries by real people!

To add to your tips…

I’d say its important to implement Conversion Tracking right from the beginning. Adwords is configured to ensure that ads with the best click through rates are shown more often. Besides getting traffic to your site, it also gets $$$ to Google’s bottomline.

However, the value of any traffic cannot be ascertained unless you have a conversion that you’re measuring (in our case, its filling out a simple form). As you get deeper into Adwords, you’ll often find that the best conversions don’t necessarily happen from the ads that have the best click-throughs. Here’s a simple illustration:

If your ad said FREE a couple of times in the headline, copy & URL, you’ll probably get a great Click Through Rate (CTR) & Google will show your ad more often than others’. However, your conversions (eg. form filled by serious business user) typically won’t be too great!

To cut a long story short:
Focus on ‘conversions’ – as you best define them! Starting this way helps ensure you stay focused as you get started with Adwords. And yes, implementing conversion tracking is quite easy to do with Adwords!

Good Luck.

Lakshmanan (Lux) Narayan
http;//www.vembu.com

Website looks awesome by the way, congrats on launching Kutenda!

Nick

I agree with the tips posted by Paul – good stuff. The saturation of Adwords and the ever-increasing cost of keywords is why we are building Kutenda to easily manage PPC campaigns across all of the major search engines, as well as other sources that are often out of reach of most SMBs.

I think the most important thing I’ve learned at Everon is to try to really get inside the head of the person that types in a specific keyword. For example, the person that types in the words “computer help” is FAR different from the person that types in “network management”. Not always, but usually.

It’s tempting to bid on every word that seems to make some sort of sense, but this is expensive and not effective.

Mike Cooch
http://www.kutenda.com

Just a couple simple words of wisdom I can give:

1. Don’t get into bidding wars. Being in the number one spot doesn’t guarantee the best returns. Sometimes being in the third or fourth position on the side can be more effective.
2. Have a hook in your add. Use something to grab people and bring them to your site. Give something away free, or just be creative.
3. Use the keywords in your ad.
4. Use several ad variations and track the effectiveness of each. It is amazing what changing one or two words in an ad can do.
5. Don’t go crazy on the keywords. I have found it more effective to use a few targeted keywords rather than two-hundred broad ones.
6. Make sure you site is built to capture leads. It is pointless to run ads if your site doesn’t entice people to ask for more information or sign-up for something.

These are some simple things to start off with. I hope this helps.

Cheers,

Paul Barnett
Marketing Director
Virtual Administrator

Mike Cooch
http://www.kutenda.com

My point: try to write content that your stakeholders truly need/want, and that Google will likely index and rank highly in the SERPs for your primary keywords. Plus, supplement those activities with paid advertising (like Google Ads) — and then you’ll have a comprehensive game plan to promote your managed services online.