All of the PPC providers have a free tool built in that helps you to select keywords to sponsor so that’s a good place to start. Firstly brainstorm keywords you want to include and don’t forget to ask your friends and contacts for ideas as they may use different search queries from you. The keywords tools will bring up further suggestions based on your lists and also give you information on how competitive the keywords are and how much they may cost to sponsor.

Once you’ve drawn up your list, make sure you don’t include any single word keywords. Using single words means your ads will show for much less targeted keyword combinations and will probably be more expensive. You also need to make sure that you include plurals in your keywords. Google Adwords requires inclusion of both so if you only put singular keywords, your ads won’t necessarily show for the plurals.

You can also add negative keywords into your lists – these are keywords which could potentially trigger your ads but you don’t want them to as they’re not targeted. For example, if you’re providing event management to companies, you may not want your ads to show up if someone types in ‘event management jobs’. So ‘jobs’ would be a negative keyword.

Once you’re happy with your list and all your keywords have been segmented into appropriate ad groups, you need to keep a close eye on which keywords work and which ones don’t. It may become apparent quite quickly which keywords are highly competitive and your keywords will end up far down the list or you’ll get a high number of impressions and few clicks. This is the time to start refining your campaign to ensure you get the best return from it.

Pay per click does require a lot of management at the beginning, but once you get into a pattern of gaining good click through rates and keep on top of your budget, you should find that your return outperforms your costs.

Whatever you do though, just make sure you track the return from your ads – I wrote about ways to do this in my recent post, Measuring your Marketing ROI.

1. Not dedicating enough time
Setting up an Adwords campaign and forgetting about it is one mistake I see too often. Businesses set up their account, put in a few keywords and hope for the best. Too often have I come across accounts that are rarely looked at and performing badly. When you commit to an Adwords campaign, you must dedicate time to managing to make sure you get the best return from it.

2. Creating one ad
Google Adwords allows you to create as many ads as you want per ad group but in many cases, I find only one ad written. When setting up an Adwords campaign, make sure you test ad text as some ads will always perform better than others, even with the smallest variations in the wording of the ads. Start off with at least 3 or 4 ads and if the click through rates on the ads is low, keep introducing new text until you get more satisfactory click through rates.

3. Not researching keywords
Many campaigns I come across haven’t researched keywords adequately or put in just a few variations, at worse single word keywords. Google Adwords has an excellent keyword research tool, so use it to ensure you’re targeting the right keywords. Make sure you include singular and plural variations too. You can find out how competitive keywords are and roughly how much they might cost so you can do all the research you need before setting up your campaigns. Separate your keywords into ad groups and write targeted ad text for those groups, you’ll find your campaign performs much better.

4. Sending traffic to the home page
I don’t come across this mistake as often as some of the others, but businesses still do it nonetheless. When setting up your ads, make sure the ads click through to the relevant page of your website, depending on what you’re advertising. It’s no good sending visitors to the home page of your website and expecting them to find the information for themselves, they’ll soon get bored, go elsewhere, resulting in a wasted click. Make sure you present your visitors with exactly what they’re looking for and if your website doesn’t lend itself to this very well, then create specific landing pages for your ads.

These are some of the most basic errors I find with Google Adwords, and it’s well worth ensuring your campaigns are set up correctly, particularly as Adwords is now very competitive and clicks are expensive. Don’t waste money by targeting the wrong keywords or sending visitors on a wild goose chase! There’s an excellent help centre in the Adwords interface, and you’ll find answers to most questions you may have there.