At first I was not sure how people could get their ads to show up with the keyword in the title until I discovered there must be a separate group in Google for each set of keywords. This way you gain instant credibility with your audience and the already think you know the most about what they are looking for.
The only downfall is that this can take some time. Expect to select about 10-20 keywords that have popular phrases associated with them and make the ad groups based on those. This leads me to the second mistake people make�
#2 Too Many Different Keywords in One Ad Group
The keywords and keyword phrases should all be very similar in each ad group that is specific in the title of the ad.
For Example for the keyword �Mutual Funds� you might have corresponding keyword phrases in the group such as:
Best mutual funds
No load mutual funds
Top mutual funds
Compare mutual funds
Best performing mutual funds
#3 No Punctuation Used On Keywords and Phrases
One of the biggest mistakes you could possible make with Google advertising is to not be specific in what kind of traffic you are trying to attract. You want to make your keywords drive highly qualified traffic to your site so you are not paying for worthless clicks. Punctuation around keywords is critical. Here is how the punctuation works.
Broad Match: No punctuation could result in your ad appearing for any of the words in your phrase without having to have any relation at all to your ad.
Phrase Match: Using quotes around your keyword phrases such as �top mutual funds� means that someone could search for �top mutual funds by vanguard� and your ad would still show because your phrase was exactly matched even though a few more words were added.
Exact Match: Using brackets around the keywords or phrases means people would have to look for those exact words in that order otherwise your ad will not appear. Using exact match can cut your bid price by 30% and get your much more highly qualified traffic. The phrase would look like this:
[top mutual funds]
Negative Keywords: These are important to avoid certain words that might contradict what you are trying to accomplish such as �free� when you are selling something. A negative keyword looks like this:
-free
#4 Selecting �All Languages� and �All Countries�
When setting up each Google campaign it is important to select English if that is what your product written in and then select the countries that speak English or a vast majority of the countries population know English. If your product is only available to people living in the US then just select the US.
#5 Taking Visitors Only To the Homepage
If you are promoting a certain product that is on a page inside of your website, you do not want to direct them to just the homepage. If you do, most of your traffic will click out since they did not see what they were looking for in the first few seconds.
#6 No Use of Capitalization
There is a direct correlation between the click through rate and the capitalization used in the ad. Be sure to capitalize the first letter of each word in your ad including the URL.
Another quick tip is to always run two ads per ad group so you can constantly try out new ways to improve the response to your ad.
#7 Bidding For the Top Position
With Google adwords advertising it is more beneficial to not be number one, instead positions three and four are the best. The top position has a high cost and also receives the most irrelevant clicks.
Also the top five positions are also on the top for searches in the network of companies with Google such as Ask.com.
#8 Bidding the Same for the Google Network & the Content Network
I have had great success bidding very low and getting a lot of sales just off the content network so I was not about to just block it completely since I would get so many clicks and low click through rates. I found you can bid separate amounts for the Google network and the content network. So now I was able to bid low for the content network like $.05 per click and much higher to be ranked in the Google search. This has saved me a lot of money in advertising.
Good Luck in your Google Adwords endeavors!
8 Common Mistakes Most People Make With Google Adwords And How To Avoid Them! 
Mon Sep 13, 2010 4:06 am