When you work on optimizing and improving the effectiveness of some of our advertisers' accounts, you come across a wide variety of problems. Although many of these are individual in nature, most of them can be addressed using general approaches. In this article we try to briefly describe what aspects of an account are the focus of our attention in initial optimization. Now every advertiser can feel like an optimization expert and do a basic setup of their account. 

Account Structure 

Campaign 1, Ad group #1. Often, this is where an account's structure starts and finishes. But having the right account structure is the foundation. Without it, further optimization is pointless. You can't build a house from the roof down. Therefore, before going any further, make sure of the following: 
  • Your Ad campaign is the "window" to your site, reflecting the types of products and services you offer.
  • You have set up global parameters (targeting, budget) at the Campaign level. 
You have set up separate Ad groups solely dedicated to each of your products. Ad groups that have a single theme or are intended for one group of visitors are grouped at Campaign level. Don't worry if you have a large number ofAd groups, as this is a sign of an effective account. 

Ads 

Advertisers often say, "Have a look. Do you think this is a good ad?" It's hard to answer this question objectively. Writing ads is a creative process. The uniqueness of each ad in AdWords is exactly what makes each ad interesting, both for visitors and advertisers. At the same time, you also need to make sure: 
  • That your ad is simple, yet professional. Clarity of meaning, no grammatical mistakes and uniqueness together make your ad interesting and attractive to your visitors. 
  • Create two to three ads in each ad group, and then let them appear online one at a time. This will allow you to evaluate the effectiveness of each ad. 
  • Use catchy expressions like "Free Delivery" - but make sure it really is free. 
  • As a rule, ads work better if the landing URL leads to the product advertised, and not to the website's home page. If the visitor is looking for a fridge, they are not going to be interested in ironing boards. 
Keywords 

Keywords are a bridge that link the visitor to your ad and website. Therefore an effective list of keywords is a guarantee that your ad will only be shown to those visitors for whom the ad will hold interest. Also, a keyword's quality score directly impacts on cost per click: the higher the quality score, the lower the cost per click - always and without exception. Therefore, when creating a keyword list you should bear in mind the following: 
  • In most cases your ad group should contain no more than 10-20 keywords. If your keyword list becomes significantly longer, that is a clear indication that your ad group is not sufficiently narrowly defined. It might be a good idea to split this single group into two or three. 
  • Firstly, you can source ideas for keywords from your own website or previous experience. Put yourself in the shoes of your visitors, and ask yourself what words they would use when looking for your product. If you run out of ideas, the "Keyword Tool" can help with suggestions (tab Reporting and Tools). 
  • Negative keywords are your friends. They help you filter out useless searches and avoid spending too much money. By using the "See search terms ..." function under theKeywords tab, you can learn which search terms are irrelevant and add negative keywords. This will help also you come up with new ideas for keywords. Filtering out search terms is not only one of the fundamentals of any optimization efforts, but also a routine task that you will have to perform from time to time. There's no getting around that one. 
By carrying out the above tasks, we end up with a solid basis: a structured account with effective ads and keywords. In follow-up articles, you can read about geographic targeting, bidding and budgeting, ad placements and how to track the performance of your campaigns. 


Written by Aleksei Petrov- AdWords Team
Posted by Omar Abou Selman - Google AdWords MENA