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.

of keywords.

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.