If you are about to spend money on Google AdWords then it is important that you also look holistically at your website, to make sure you will get maximum benefit from your internet marketing investment.

1 Get your product pricing right

Importantly, make sure your prices for products are competitive. They don’t need to be the cheapest just competitive, otherwise you will be pay for click throughs that have very limited hope of converting, wasting time, effort and money on your part. If you want to get people to your site you may even want to consider running your campaign as a loss leader to drive traffic in that is likely to convert for the advertised product, with the hope that they will add other products to their baskets.

2 Know your keywords

Google offers some fantastic keyword tools so make sure you use them. Google Trends helps you understand what people are searching for but also helps with – as the name suggests – trends. Highlight want search terms are on the rise in say the last 30 days. Is there value to be had in these terms? The Google AdWords own Keyword Tool can then identify how much competition you will have using your AdWord budget for those terms. Beyond Google and at a cost you could try some competitive intelligence using something like Keyword Spy and identify what they are investing in.

3 Set up Google Analytics correctly

The Google family always work well together and by using Google Analytics you can track how much each source and each visitor is worth to you both organically and via AdWords. Being able to see where visitors are coming from and leaving your site from will also give you an insight into more relevant keywords for future AdWords campaigns.

4 Don’t rely on automation

Although Google Adwords can be automated and work very well, for best results you do need to keep monitoring your campaigns. By all means have a budget – there is no point spending more than you can afford – but don’t let that be your automation controller. Consider altering your campaign daily by re-adjusting your bid price rather than just having a set budget. With the latter once your budget is used up your ad will no longer be displayed which means you risk missing traffic and certainly any advantage over competitors if there is a sudden rush. If there is a rush better to go slightly over your budget but drive in considerable more traffic, you just need to make sure you are checking your spend regularly.

5 Use variations for best results

When designing your AdWords ads don’t just have one option. Use a couple of different calls to action. Consider it as a cheap way of multi-variate testing. You will soon learn what works, when and where. Don’t try to cram too much into an ad either. Create ad groups and have one group per product you are much more likely to see success.

6 Don’t forget your own brands

OK organic traffic should put you high up the rankings but AdWords work and place you where people are more likely to click. Someone searching specifically for your brand is highly likely to click as soon as they see your ad and then also convert too, so you are almost guaranteed a winner. In addition, because it is your own brand name the cost per click should also be low and backed by a high conversion rate it is a pretty safe bet.

That’s just six ways you can make your Google AdWords campaign more successful, but we are sure you have more. Please let us know.