Welcome to our first PPC lesson.

There are many components to Google AdWords campaigns for search: Campaigns, AdGroups, Ads and Phrases are the main components and are all necessary.

It is best to explain these in reverse order. Although you have a campaign that consists of AdGroups and each AdGroup consists of Ads and Phrases it is best to start with phrases because when you build campaigns this is where you will start.

Phrases

These are the actual phrases that you want to be found for. When you add these to your AdGroup (AdGroups are explained below) your Ad will be displayed to the searcher. There are 3 different types of phrases and to avoid confusion we will now refer to these as keyphrases:

Broad: This is the keyphrase you have chosen and any phrase that Google deems as relevant. For example if you choose broad match for Windows PC Google may trigger your Ad if someone types in Window Computer because Google may see PC and Computer as the same.

Phrase: This is the keyphrase that you have chosen and the keyphrase you have chosen incorporated within a longer phrase. For example if you choose phrase match for Windows PC Google will trigger your Ad if someone types in Windows PC but Google will also trigger your Ad if someone types in Buy a Windows PC online because this phrase includes the keyphrase Windows PC.

Exact: This is simply the keyphrase you have chosen and only the keyphrase you have chosen. For example if you chose exact match for Windows PC then your Ad will only be triggered if someone types in Windows PC.

Negative: These use the same match types as above (broad, phrase and exact) but allow you to not show your Ad if the negative phrase is included as well. This is best explained with an example: If one of your keyphrases is phrase match Windows PC and you are only interested in people who want to buy products from you and you don’t offer reviews then you may add a negative exact match phrase Review. So if someone types in Buy Windows PCyour add will show (because it is phrase match) but if someone types in Windows PC Review your Ad won’t be triggered because it includes the phrase Review.

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Note about Match Types: Normally Broad match keyphrases will be cheaper than Phrase match keyphrases and Phrase match keyphrases will be cheaper than Exact match keyphrases. However you may get a lot of unwanted searchers through Broad match phrases so we recommend starting campaigns with Phrase and Exact Match keyphrases. If Phrase match keyphrases are used we also recommend including Negative phrases.

Ads: These are the actual Ads that searchers will see when they search for one of your keyphrases. There is a lot that you can do with the Ads but we will start with the basics. An Ad has 5 main components: Heading, Display URL, Description Line 1, Description Line 2 and Destination URL.

Headline: This is the headline of the Ad which people will click on and is set to a maximum of 25 characters.

Display URL: This is the URL that you want to display to the public and this will sit just under the Heading in your Ad. This is restricted to 35 characters and has to include your actual domain name.

Description Line 1: Depending on Ads positions in the rankings depends on where this will be displayed in your Ad. If you are in the top 3 listings on the left of the page this will be displayed on your Heading line just after your heading with 2 spaces either side of a hyphen preceding it ( – ). This is restricted to 35 characters.

Description Line 2: This will either be placed under the Description line 1 or under the display URL depending on the position of the Ad. This is restricted to 35 characters.

Destination URL: This is the URL that the searcher will be sent to if they click on the Ad. This is also known as the Landing Page.

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AdGroup

This is the method of categorising or Grouping Keyphrases and Ads together. This allows you to have relevant Ads triggered by the most relevant keyphrases.

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Campaigns

This is the top level structure and allow you to set target audiences, budgets and more.

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I hope you’ve got all this – next time we’ll really get moving when we identify the keyphrases which will drive traffic and sales