So you have decided that Google advertising is the way to go but either don’t have a huge budget or don’t want to jump into the deep end too quick. This is probably wise. As we covered in the pros and cons of Google Adwords if you aren’t careful your advertising can become very expensive very quick. Here are some tips to get you the most relevant traffic through Google with the least spend.

Consider Your Quality Score

One of the best and worst things about Google Adwords is the quality score. To understand some of this article you might want to watch this video from Google first:

The information below will help you formulate adverts with better relevance and therefore quality scores.

Consider Your Landing Pages

I will use my website as the example because SEO, social media and web marketing related search terms are horrifically expensive. Google uses their quality score system to decide how much each individual click will cost.

Because relevance of landing page is an important factor in adjusting your quality score select your keywords based on what landing pages you have available on your website. Using my website as an example I have one landing page - my Brighton page.

Use Exact Match Keywords

Adwords allows for three kinds of keyword targeting, you have

Broad match - These keywords target any search using the words you are targeting. For instance covering broad match SEO Brighton, I might appear when somebody searches SEO in Brighton, or Brighton SEO however I might also appear when somebody puts in a typo like How warm is the seo in brighton. I generally find broad matching to be a bad idea but don’t even consider it if you have a set budget.

“Phrase match” - These keywords target the phrase you enter so if I started with “SEO in Brighton” I would appear when people searched for example Tips for SEO in Brighton. This is better but if you really are on a budget I would avoid phrase matching.

[Exact Match] - These are the keywords I would go for on a budget. Targeting [SEO in Brighton] I would only appear if that is what is searched. Even if somebody was searching for [SEO Brighton] I still wouldn’t appear. For campaigns with a large budget this can be a small problem but if you are working to a tight budget I feel it is always best to be exact.

For some businesses like Taxi firms “Taxi in Brighton” people are only likely to click onto your website because they are looking for your phone number and the risk of phrase matching is smaller, but if you are on a really tight budget there is the possibility of somebody searching for “How much would a taxi in Brighton cost” and then clicking on your sponsored link. This is unlikely and you need to weigh up the possibility of losing business by going exact with the possibility of getting irrelevant click throughs.

Use the Keyword Planner

Google’s Keyword planner is great. Visit the keyword planner and sign in with your Google account.

You can now simply enter the landing page that you are choosing to target and Google with create lists of keywords you may wish to cover and estimates of traffic you will get for how much cost. The keyword planner is both very simple and packed with complicated features which would take a whole article to explain. Watch this space.

Use Long Tail Keywords

A long tail keyword is something quite specific. You can use a long tail keyword to target people who you think are most likely to click through to your website and then convert into actual business. With my landing page I might want to target [Cheap SEO consultations in Brighton].

This is unlikely to get much traffic but the traffic I do get is ultra relevant meaning that I will have a good quality score - with the right ad copy (description) I would be likely to have a good click through rate, and also a good conversion of clicks into actual business. On top of this exact match long tail keywords tend to be cheaper to target in their own right.

See What Works

Get a selection of keywords which you are fairly confident won’t cost you too much because they are relevant, exact and long tail. Run them for a few weeks and see which are performing best and which are cheapest. You can then decide whether you want to increase or decrease your budget. You can look at which adverts have the highest quality score and only keep them, you can increase your overall budget and add more keywords.

Two factors in your quality score - click through rate, and predicted click through rate - or in plainer english: the proportion of people who search for your term clicking through to your advert, and also whether Google expects this to change are affected by how long your adverts have ran. Good relevant adverts should get better quality scores over time.

One great thing about Google Adwords are their flexibility. If you follow this guide you are unlikely to wind up with any keywords which cost you more than they generate but you can easily pause any which you fear might be.