Adwords ads will appear above the search results page. How prominently
they are displayed depends on the keywords searched for and the amount
an advertiser bids on those keywords.

Keywords play a very important role when it comes to Adwords advertising.
Therefore before launching an Adwords campaign, you should take some time
to do your keyword research so that you don't pay for more than you have to
or bid for an expensive keyword when an alternative will work just as well.

You also want to ensure that your keyword selection fits your target
audience; otherwise, it will be wasted clicks and costs.

There are four conditions of keyword searches and you can take advantage
of that knowledge to ensure your ad gets maximum exposure.

• Broad Match - this is the default setting. Say someone is looking
'fine china' as in porcelain or ceramic plates, so he keys in this term in
Google's search box. The results that come up will not only have ads that
sell fine china, but also trips to china, bridal registries, pictures of
fine china, and any other ads that has the word 'fine' and 'china' in it,
not necessarily in that order. Keywords will also include plural and other
variations.

• Phrase Match - this narrows down the search parameters a little.
Users put quotation marks on a keyword phrase like “fine china”. Ads that
appear will contain the phrase fine china in that exact order. It could be
'antique fine china' or 'fine china collection'. If, however, there are any
words between 'fine' and 'china', like 'fine German china' the ad will be
excluded from the search results.

• Exact Match - this searches for the exact keyword phrase. To do an
exact match search users put brackets around the keyword [fine china]
therefore the ads that come out will only be those that bid on 'fine china'
alone without any words before and after it. This considerably narrows down
the search results.

• Negative Match - this will help to eliminate all irrelevant keywords.
For example, someone might be searching for 'fine china' looking for retailers
but ads for antiques or bridal registries keep appearing. In this case they
can insert a negative in front of the irrelevant keywords like '-antiques',
'-bridal' and '-registries' so that those ads don't appear.

So here's an advertiser's dilemma. Using Exact Match will ensure that you get
the most targeted traffic, but you will not get a lot of exposure. On the other
hand, Broad Match will get you a lot of exposure, but what is the percentage of
targeted traffic that you can get and how much are you paying for those wasted
clicks?

You can, of course, bid for more keywords but that could drive your advertising
budget up if you are not careful.

So what else can you do that will ensure you get the most targeted traffic at
the lowest bid possible?

Not many people know about this but Google Adwords has another advertising
model called Site Targeting which do not keyword expertise.

With Site Targeting, ads are syndicated to content websites in Google's
content network. The ads will not appear on the search results page, but on
websites full of content that has high relevance to your ads.

Advertisers find that with Site Targeting, they are able to cut their
advertising budget because they will only be charged after their ads are
displayed 1,000 times. They will not lose out on wasted clicks from less
targeted traffic.

To top it off, advertisers can display banner ads with images and flash
animation compared to the classic style of a headline followed by a short
description in which they will have to cram in as many relevant keywords as
they can and still remain coherent. Ads can be customized to fit a certain
website so that it looks like it is part of the site rather than a blatant
advertisement.

Because these attractive ads appear in content sites, rather than search
results page, it paves the way for a higher conversion rate. Imagine you ad
for your fine china retail store appearing next to or in the middle of an
article that gives pointers to select quality fine china.

Site Targeting has certainly opened up the doors to better advertising
opportunities on the internet.

Patric Chan, 29 November 2008
 

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