Mary runs a large online shoe store that sells a variety of shoes. She created an AdWords
campaign when she launched her new website. The campaign brought people to her site but
her sales haven’t increased as much as she hoped. Let’s see how Mary learned to use
the right keywords to attract actual customers.
Keywords are words or phrases that match ads with a customer’s search. When Mary first
opened her business she wanted to create a buzz about her store and bring as many people
to her site as possible, so she used very general keywords like “shoes” and “sneakers.”
This worked well and her ads got lots of clicks but she wasn’t selling a lot of shoes. Here’s
how Mary was able to get the right people to her site, and turn those clicks into customers.
Tip #1 Think like a customer
First, Mary tries to imagine what her customers would search for. She writes down all the
categories of shoes she sells. Then she thinks of specific search words for each category.
Doing this makes it easy for her to come up with the right keywords to attract customers
looking for the shoes she actually sells.
Tip #2 Organize by theme
Mary learned to group her ads by themes- she creates different themes for the different
types of shoes she sells. For example she creates an ad campaign around the broad theme
of “women’s boots.” She then creates different ads and keywords for rain boots,
high-fashion boots and booties. By doing this Mary reaches the right customers AND keeps
her account organized.
Tip #3 Be specific
Mary wants to promote her sale on men’s basketball shoes. If she uses a general keyword
like “basketball” she could get irrelevant matches of people looking for basketball scores
or basketball videos.
To promote her sale she adds “discount men’s basketball shoes” and
“men’s basketball shoes sale.” She even includes her sale price in the ad. When using
such specific keywords-- the more the merrier. Successful advertisers choose 5-20 keywords
per ad group.
Tip #4 Use negative keywords
Negative keywords ensure your ads don’t show to the wrong people. Mary doesn’t sell
children’s shoes so she adds “children” and “kids” to her negative keyword list.
This way Mary can be sure she isn’t paying for ad clicks on a product she doesn’t sell.
Tip #5 Use the Keyword Planner
Think of the Keyword Planner like a workshop for building new ad campaigns or improving
old ones. Mary uses the Keyword Planner to come up with new ideas for effective keywords.
The Keyword Planner also helps her estimate the number of clicks she would get for her
new keywords. Once Mary adds her keywords, she can check to see how they're performing
in the Keywords tab. That way she can increase her bids on keywords that perform well to
help improve her ad's position and get her ad in front of more customers.
By following these tips Mary was able to increase her sales by getting her ads in front of the
right customers who clicked on her ads and bought shoes from her site.
For more ideas on how to use the right keywords to boost your AdWords success, visit the AdWords
help center.