[admagic]

(1) Not targetting [EXACT], "PHRASE" and BROAD separately
theres a high likelihood you may be losing money on broad unless you test.

(2) Not targetting ads and landing pages to specific keywords The same ad and landing page wil not do for all keywords For that reason, for most begnners, targetting too many keywords
is wrong - unless a lot of effort is put the effort into separate groups

(3) Failing to write compelling ads that give a reason to click thru

(4) Failing to write specific landing pages targetting the mindset of the keywords.. eg , dont direct "rabbit food" at a page dealing with general pet needs, - go straight to rabbit food

(5) Failing to have a specific call to action, and directing the landing page to that.

(6) Failing to put things that google look for for quality. DId you know a privacy policy is vital, and if you dont have one google give you lower quality and higher price?

(7) Failing to use the real gem of Adwords properly which is Content, specifically using placement targetting. Which is the real gem used properly!

Find sites AND SPECIFIC PAGES , not entire sites ( use googles tools - or look for those ranking #1 for your terms)choose only those with prominent ads on the first fold. Target those sites using CPM and you get a 3 times size ad, and Cheaper clicks!
And there is often more traffic here, than for your keywords"!

(7) Failing to test enough ads, and optimise the campaign before google start pushing prices up - and failure to strike bad keywords

(8) Always going for a sale, where in most cases a sign up is better - few goods are bought without looking around, nd if hey go away you can nver get them back - So what can you give them for free to sign up?

(9) Not thinking enough about your customer to find the backdoor keywords which identify your customer before they buy...not when they are buying. eg "home decorating" identifies many people about to sell their homes." "wall street journal" identifies potential investors maybe "maternity labour" identifies a mum to be long before they buy kids clothing. Bidding on the title of a popular book that only your kind of customer would read.-

Get them early, give them good information then pitch And these can be VERY VERY cheap clicks! and you have them for life. If you wait for them to type "cheap baby clothes"...you can be too late.

(10) failing to separate the handful money keywords into separate campaign and treating them with kid gloves! to ensure experiments never ruin CTR

[Shop-Window-Posters]

Good advice! Thanks

[Paul Norman]

This is sound stuff. As with all things, taking the time to plan your campaign, and monitor it, and constantly tweak it, backed with thought and research can really improve the return.

[Mike Seddon]

I'd add one more to the list.

Failing to act on all the great advice giving on this forum full stop!

[Paul Norman]

True Mike!!!!...

There is some sound stuff kicking around!

[Mike Seddon]

Originally Posted by admagic

(6) Failing to put things that google look for for quality. DId you know a privacy policy is vital, and if you dont have one google give you lower quality and higher price?

Privacy Policy?

That's a new one on me.

I must admit I have one anyway so perhaps I've never noticed but what are you basing this observation on? - Just interested.

Ta
Mike

[admagic]

Originally Posted by Mike Seddon

Privacy Policy?

That's a new one on me.

I must admit I have one anyway so perhaps I've never noticed but what are you basing this observation on? - Just interested.

Ta
Mike

At the time of google slap a lot of Substantial testing was done by serious league internet marketers to find out what worked still. I heard it in two places, independendly on a jim edwards /armand morin webinar - and in a personal conversation with gr eg cesar

It became apparent that it was not the idea of a sales squeeze that was the problem, but there had to be other pageas. And what they proved was that a privacy policy was how google identified "proper companies"

This was recently explicitly confirmed in an audio interview with an ex senior google employee around at the time the decisions were taken ..will see if i can dig up his name..it was an interview doing the rounds about 2 weeks ago: And examples on that webinar showed that a site ONLY containing a privacy, a single link to a dead end information page and a squeeze avoided the slap.

I have confirmed that the combination of about, contact, articles, privacy always gets great quality provided the kewords are in the page title and one other place.

[Mike Seddon]

Originally Posted by admagic

At the time of google slap a lot of Substantial testing was done by serious league internet marketers to find out what worked still. I heard it in two places, independendly on a jim edwards /armand morin webinar - and in a personal conversation with gr eg cesar

It became apparent that it was not the idea of a sales squeeze that was the problem, but there had to be other pageas. And what they proved was that a privacy policy was how google identified "proper companies"

This was recently explicitly confirmed in an audio interview with an ex senior google employee around at the time the decisions were taken ..will see if i can dig up his name..it was an interview doing the rounds about 2 weeks ago: And examples on that webinar showed that a site ONLY containing a privacy, a single link to a dead end information page and a squeeze avoided the slap.

I have confirmed that the combination of about, contact, articles, privacy always gets great quality provided the kewords are in the page title and one other place.

OK. Thanks. I tend to avoid squeeze pages anyway as I've not found the need for them so far. However we've just bought another lot of domain names so maybe I'll test out this theory.

[Allblue]

Great advice...Very many thanks

[admagic]

Originally Posted by admagic

At the time of google slap a lot of Substantial testing was done by serious league internet marketers to find out what worked still. I heard it in two places, independendly on a jim edwards /armand morin webinar - and in a personal conversation with gr eg cesar

It became apparent that it was not the idea of a sales squeeze that was the problem, but there had to be other pageas. And what they proved was that a privacy policy was how google identified "proper companies"

This was recently explicitly confirmed in an audio interview with an ex senior google employee around at the time the decisions were taken ..will see if i can dig up his name..it was an interview doing the rounds about 2 weeks ago: And examples on that webinar showed that a site ONLY containing a privacy, a single link to a dead end information page and a squeeze avoided the slap.

I have confirmed that the combination of about, contact, articles, privacy always gets great quality provided the kewords are in the page title and one other place.

re the audio interview.... the employee was "simon leung" - who headed up an optimisation team on adwords and was there at the time of the slap...talked about the importancy of a privacy policy in an interview with Malcolm Glanfield.

He also said that there is a conflict, because google prefers sites with images/header graphics and so gives them better quality scores, but squeeze pages WITHOUT header graphocs are known to work better.