Google AdWords is our speciality, and study after study shows that PPC works extremely well when you take the time to set up your account properly.  Here are four tips for getting the best bang for your PPC buck.

1. Choose your keywords carefully. You shouldn’t simply accept the list of terms that the AdWords Keyword Generator suggests. They are often too broad. Think carefully of what your product or service is, and then think about how your customers describe your service and what they look for.  Make sure you use the negative keyword option as well. You may sell pet supplies for mice. You don’t want to have people looking for a Microsoft Mouse wasting your budget by clicking your ads.

2. Direct your ad to the right landing page on your website. If you run a pet business and the customer is looking for a mouse cage then don’t waste their time and your money by sending them to your homepage. Direct them to your cage page. People want to see what they are searching for after 1 click; most won’t click 2 or 3 more times.

3. Set your campaign to take advantage of regions and times.  There is very little point in having someone click on your pet store ad if they live 4,000 miles away. They aren’t likely to buy anything from you, but they will waste your PPC budget by clicking on your ad.  You may also want to think about experimenting with running your ads more aggressively during certain time periods.  If you have a sports store, you might want to run ads for team jerseys more aggressively during the Super Bowl playoff games.

4. Make sure you are monitoring, testing and adjusting your campaign. The single biggest waste of PPC budget comes from ‘setting and forgetting’. At WordWatch we see this daily.  Google AdWords allows you to track all the aspects of your campaign. Take advantage of the information to hone your settings, keywords and phrases. Regular maintenance of your campaign is the single easiest way to optimize your PPC spend.

As with most aspects of running your business, some hard work and research in the front end of your AdWords campaign will yield benefits down the road, and will help to keep you from wasting time and money.