There are several easy steps to spend less on Google Adwords and get more for your money.  Google Adwords is a highly effective internet advertising program that will generate traffic to your website and calls to your business.  I have assisted clients in direct mail campaigns, print ads, and radio ads.  Internet advertising with Google AdWords has had the best return on investment (ROI).  Google only has a few competitors for Adwords.  If your interested in trying other internet advertising options you may want to consider Facebook, AdBrite, Adify, CrispAds, OpenX, and Bing adCenter.  As competition on the internet grows, the cost to advertise online increases as well.  I have seen a steady increase in the cost per click (CPC) over the last twelve months.  With this increased cost, you need to focus your efforts to maximize spend.  The following tips are a high level summary of how you can plan your online advertising strategy with little effort and high payoff.

#1 Focus on Your Top Priorities

• Determine what kind of traffic you want to attract.  On Google AdWords, you can advertise on the search network, content network, or both.

For lawyer related advertising, I have found that the search network alone results in higher quality calls and less spend than the content network.  Ads for the search network appear on Google.com or search partners when you search on a key word.  If you search on the phrase airline tickets, Google will show ads related to air travel on the top of the Google home page and on the right hand side of the page.  When you advertise on the content network, you will see ads related to airline tickets on travel related web sites for partners who display Google AdSense.

• Do you want to generate calls to your business?  If so, make sure your phone number is clearly listed in your add.

Search on the key words for your business on Google and you will often see many advertisers that do not display their phone number.  If you get a call without having someone click on your ad, you can save money.

• Do you want customers/clients to make a purchase on your site?

If you sell products online, make sure your site is well optimized for SEO and create individual pages for each product type.  You can use AdWords to advertise individual products and link to the pages for higher quality ads.  AdWords should always be used in conjunction with an overall SEO strategy.   For example, you can create free classified ads, Twitter, Blogs, YouTube, and social bookmarking to increase your rankings.

• Do you want to gain customers 24 hours a day?

If your not available by phone 24 hours per day or seven days a week, you probably don’t need to keep your ads running.  Use AdWords settings to restrict time of day and days of week as needed.

#2 Use the Google Key Word Tool and Choose Your Key Words Carefully

The Google key word tool can either be accessed in your existing adWords account by going to Reporting and Tools>KeyWord Tool in the top navigation or by going to the Google Key Word Tool. Type in the key word or phrase and test it out by clicking the box “only show ideas closely related to my search terms” and search again without the box selected.  The columns include keyword, competition, global monthly searches, and local monthly searches.  Click on global or local monthly searches to bring your highest volume key words to the top and focus on these keywords.  When you configure key words on your campaign, don’t select too many to start as you may drain your budget quickly.  You will want to focus on keywords that directly apply to your business.  Additionally, you may want to think of negative key words.  For example, if your running a law firm and don’t give services away for free, you don’t want to advertise for free lawyer or pro bono lawyer.

#3 Build High Quality Ads

Google and Bing assess the quality of your ads and rank them according to your competition.  There may be 2 or 3 positions or more.  The more relevant your title, content, and URL are, the higher the quality of your ad.  Also, higher quality ads are shown more frequently (have more impressions) and have higher conversion.  To increase your ad relevance, you can improve your ad quality with the following:

• Use keyword parameters so you have one or more ads for each major key word
• Use the key word in the ad tagline
• Have your ad land on a page with relevant content (jewelery ad sends customers to a jewelery web page and the page and has “jewelery” in the URL)