Tweaking AdWords

In my upcoming ebook, I cover in great detail journaling everything you do with your contextual ad programs. This is so important and a tip I've never seen covered. What is nice is that in the ebook, I share with you what is important to cover and what is not. Remember, wasted time is your enemy.

Yesterday, I added a whole new site with pages about the best family resorts in the Caribbean. I released the site and created my AdWord campaign, as I teach, and today my expense to gain ratio is not in my "sweet spot". Should I panic? No.

My test cycle is 7 days. Of course, if things are going off-scale, pare them down immediately. But, always allow at least 7 days to review your numbers. At the same time, keep meticulous notes.

Basically, you are looking at a few major parameters to journal. You can print out most of these, but, you'll need to journal what you did; what changes you made. Here are a few I cover in the ebook:

• Capitalization of words in your AdWord ad
• Keywords and bid price
• Keywords added or removed
• Contextual ad placement/color/style
• New ads added/ads removed

The better you document what you do, the easier it will be to control your campaign. Graph your earnings per ad channel. Find out which channels are strong, which are weak.

But test you must.

What do you do when you find your campaign isn't working at all? If you have your documentation (journal), it will be easier to see where the break-down is. For instance, if you see you are spending more than a third of your income on AdWords, you need to check to see if the keywords you are using actually have to do with the context on your page.

My most famous mantra is create pages of value to the visitor. The whole object is to gain a relationship with the visitor - one of trust, that you have something of value to offer. The contextual ads are simply a bonus.

When you offer context of value, the monetization falls in place and people will read your content and go on to similar interests through the ads. So, many times when your campaign is failing - check the keywords, and make sure your content is what a visitor would be looking for if they entered that keyword.

And now, as promised, some keywords for you to work with. You can grab them here, and keep me updated with what you are doing and how it's going, either by commenting here, or writing me at naplesdave @gmail.com.