I’m often asked how to find invoices in AdWords.  The good news is there are printable invoices, you just need to be able to access them.

In order to do this log into AdWords and click onto the green tab marked Billing and then click Billing Summary.

Scroll down until you find the right month.  Note you can ONLY print out an invoice for the current month when it ends.  Now click the Invoice button:

The invoice will now turn into a printable screen – simply go to File – Print.

To access previous months, change the date selector and then click Go.

You should now be able to see the month you have selected – again simply click the Invoice link and you will be able to print out your invoice.

Questions?  Do ask them here!

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Once you have created and setup the many necessary ad groups that make up your adwords account, you may be tempted to think you are now finished- you couldn’t be more wrong! Adwords accounts take consistent optimising and improvements in order to maximise the return on investment that you will receive.

The amount of work that your adwords account will require differs based on a number of things. Clearly, the larger the account, the more work that will be required to constantly update and ensure your ad groups are not being matched against irrelevant keywords, and that the account is converting effectively. Another way to judge the amount of work that your adwords account will require is to look at the number of broad and modified broad keywords in your ad groups. If you have a high number of broad keywords in your account, then those keywords are highly likely to be matched against many things that are irrelevant to what you are offering. This will mean you will need to constantly check to see what your ad groups are being matched against. If you discover a keyword that is not appropriate to what you are offering, then you will need to add it in as a negative to your adwords account.

In order to check all of the keywords that your adwords account is being matched against, you will need to examine your search query reports regularly and ideally schedule them to arrive weekly via email.  This will allow you to  find new ad groups or keywords to use in your adwords account.

For example, you are a company that sells large quantities of office equipment. The broad keyword: “printing paper” is matched against “wholesale printing paper”. You may wish to then create a separate ad group containing the exact and phrase match keywords of “wholesale printing paper”. This will then mean you can write a more relevant ad for this ad group, containing the exact words within the ad. A more relevant ad means a higher chance of it being clicked, which means a higher quality score resulting in lower costs for that keyword. Furthermore, using the search term report to find additional ad groups like this will allow you to discover different thought processes of your potential customers. This will allow your adwords account to reach a larger number of people and increase your return on investment.

To conclude, updating your adwords account using the search term report is highly important. If you do not have enough time to do this on a regular basis, then you are better off using fewer broad keywords when you first set up your adwords campaign. The reason for this is that broad keywords are going to result in more impressions, which means you have a higher chance of being matched against irrelevant search terms.   Of course, if you don’t have time to manage your AdWords account on a continual basis, you’d be better of using a PPC Management company such as ourselves J

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A great infographic showing the areas in which Google makes the most money. Not surprising to see insurance related keyphrases as the biggest revenue generator!

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Until recently you could have been forgiven for thinking that Google was not the most social of animals. But the recent launch of Google+ may have made them have a bit of a rethink.

One of the questions we used to get asked a lot was ‘Where can I find a customer support number for Google Adwords?’, and to be honest, it was difficult to answer. Unless you were spending a fair amount, you didn’t get an account manager, and most queries were expected to be dealt with by email and support tickets.

However, their foray into the world of Social Media Marketing must have given them a great idea, because they’ve now opened up telephone support for Adwords customers in Europe.

Yes, you can now get hold of a real live person to help with your Adwords queries and problems!

Not only that, the lines are available in quite a few languages, which we think is great!

They do stress that these lines are only for current customers, so you’ll need to have your Google Adwords customer ID ready when you call.

Telephone numbers for Google Adwords Customer Support:

• UK – 0845 600 0278
• Ireland – 1890 907 106
• Austria – 0810 1025 1509
• Poland – (00)8004411830 (toll free)
• Germany – 0180 111 1134
• Spain – 901 010 016
• Italy – 840 320 106
• France – 0811 650 221
• Switzerland – 0848 560 155
• Netherlands – 0900 0400 898
• Belgium – 0703 59 959

It’s nice to see an online company offering telephone support at last!

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Adwords is being used by many companies and individuals looking to boost sales and drive traffic to a website. These tips should help you start making money through Google adwords.

1.      Not Enough Ad Groups- Many inexperienced adwords managers make the mistake of not creating enough ad groups. Having many ad groups allows you to write ads more appropriate to every search term that people may search for. If you have only one ad group, with many keywords and one ad, you will have a very low click through rate.  This will result in a low quality score, meaning your ads will be more expensive to show.

2.      Use Negative Keywords- Negative keywords are extremely undervalued by the majority of newcomers to adwords. Having a big list of negative keywords- (phrases you don’t want your ads showing for) will cause your click through rate to rise. This will save you money and ensure you are advertising to targeted people- people more likely to convert.

3.      Make use of the search term report- Within adwords, open the relevant campaign and go to the keywords tab. Now click on “See search terms…” which should be directly under the keywords tab. Click on “all” and then “download” and finally “create”- make sure the format is excel. This will create an excel spreadsheet giving you detailed information about the keywords your ads have been matched against over a period of time. (You can change this period of time in the top right hand corner of the adwords keywords tab) You can use this information to create new ad groups and add new negative keywords.

4.      Use small numbers of keywords in each ad group- Some people make the mistake of cramming loads of keywords into an ad group. This will make your campaign unorganised, and cause you to have low click through rate. Ideally, you should have 3 keywords per ad group; in three forms. Best practice is to use modified broad, phrase and exact in each ad group.

5.      Update your adwords campaign on a regular basis- Ideally, you should be updating your adwords campaign at least once a week. This means looking at the search term report and applying all of the above tips to your campaign. Eventually you will build a campaign that has a high click through rate, and is constantly streaming potential customers to your website on a regular basis.

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Here at Marketing By Web we’re often asked: “Which is better? SEO or Google Adwords?” and the truthful answer is that it depends on your website.
But that’s a whole other blog post

For the majority of websites, SEO and Adwords working in tandem is a great strategy.

Why?

Well, let’s look at the pros and cons of SEO and Adwords separately first.

SEO (search engine optimisation)

Pros:

• can be low cost, whether you DIY or employ an SEO consultant
• some people use organic listings more than they click on Adwords
• most sites can be optimised with a little work
• once listings are achieved, a little work every month can keep those listings

Cons:

• it takes time to see your listings rise, especially if you’re in a competitive industry
• short tail keyphrases are usually very competitive
• there’s no real way to know if you’ve chosen the correct keyphrases until you get the listings you want

Adwords

Pros:

• listings are alive almost immediately
• you can use Adwords to test the efficacy of keywords before embarking on SEO
• you can control your budget
• Google will give you advice on landing pages
• you only pay for each visitor you get

Cons:

• for very competitive keyphrases it can be expensive
• if your ads aren’t written properly then your ‘quality’ score could be low
• if your site isn’t well designed, your ads may not show often

So, by combining SEO and Adwords, you can get the pros of each (quick listings, testing, organic listings, good results), and use each of them to negate the pros. Let’s see some examples:

• SEO takes time, but Adwords are almost instant – so you can use Adwords to get quick wins, and use SEO for the longer term
• With SEO you may not know if you’re choosing the correct phrases – Adwords helps you to refine this
• If you have a low quality score in Adwords, and you ads don’t show oftem the work you do on your site will benefit your SEO

We understand that in some cases it’s an either/or situation, but in our opinion, SEO and Adwords work hand in hand to provide all round search engine promotion for your site.

Are you using both SEO AND Adwords to promote your website?

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You may or may not know that Google offers a certification program for people looking to manage Adwords accounts. Because, while it is true that anyone can learn to manage an Adwords account, Google wants its users to know that the people Google themselves recommend (such as us!) have gone through some sort of vetting process and met the Google Grade.

If you’re managing your own account, then it’s worth going through the accreditation anyway, as you’ll pick up some useful hints and tips form the training, but it’s not absolutely necessary of course.

However, we believe that if you’re going to pay someone else to manage your account, then you deserve the peace of mind that comes from knowing they’ve passed the tests that Google sets and earned their stripes.

There are two qualifications to look for:

• Individual qualification – this is for individuals who have studied and passed a basic exam and one advanced exam. If you’re a marketing manager, or a small business owner, and want to manage one or two accounts, this could be perfect for you.

• Company qualification – by attaining this status, you will not only be eligible to be featured in the Google Partner Search, but you will also be able to offer money off coupons, get extra marketing support and help from Google and gain extra training. Thisis perfect if you run an agency or manage multiple accounts.

So what does it entail?

Your Google Certified Adwords Manager will have undergone extensive training from Google in account setup and management, verifying click fraud, designing and optimising landing pages, writing and constructing ads to get the best results, and more. They’ll know how to get the best quality score, how to minimise useless clicks, how to ensure you don’t go over your budget yet still remain advertising, among other things.

He or she will be able to run your account like a well oiled machine from the get go, without the learning curve anyone new will have to endure.

But above all not only has he or she undertaken this training, they’ve passed Google set exams to PROVE that they know what they’re doing. And to keep the knowledge up to date, the advanced exams have to be redone yearly – so you’re safe in the knowledge that your Adwords Manager isn’t lagging behind in knowledge.

We’re great believers in allowing people to go their own way, and our blog gives lots of help on this, but if you do decide to go down the Adwords Manager route, then we’d highly advise looking for this badge on the site of the person or agency you choose.

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Here at Marketing By Web we’re the first to tell you that you CAN manage your own Adwords campaigns, and we give you lots of great hints and tips on our blog to help you do so.

But if you run a small business, often things such as Adwords take a back seat, which means they become inefficient, expensive, or both.

An Adwords Manager can make sure you’re getting the best from your advertising spend, and here are 5 reasons why.

1) We’ve been there, done that

We too were newbies to Adwords once, believe it or not! We built up our knowledge, made our mistakes and learned from them, and now we’re experts in what we do. Getting Adwords right requires a learning curve, trial and error, and can sometimes mean some pretty costly mistakes. We’ve gone through that curve and our systems and processes are efficient and slick, giving you the best bang for your buck.

2) Time is on our side

Because Adwords and SEO is all we do, we’ve developed th aforementioned systems and processes to ensure that we can dedicate time and energy to each account we manage in an efficient way. Adwords is our lifeblood as it were, so we put in the time to get it right. Your lifeblood is YOUR business, and as such do you really have time to be testing and tweaking, checking and changing, monitoring and tracking, on a daily basis?

3) Dedication is our watchword

We’re dedicated to making sure that you get the most from your Adwords, and we stake our reputation on that. You’re dedicated to serving your customers or clients, and being the best in your business. Well so are we. We’re never going to be great car mechanics or accountants, but we are great Adwords Managers which means your business gets two dedicated experts; us and you!

4) You get what you pay for

We charge a flat monthly fee or percentage for our services; not a variable amount. With that and your clickthru budget you know exactly what you will pay every month and can sit back in the knowledge that we’re getting you the best results possible from your Adwords.

5) You’re in safe hands

No more having to wonder whether you should increase or reduce a bid, no more being scared of click fraud, no more checking your stats every ten minutes to see what’s happening. Our track reputation is flawless and we have the testimonials to prove it. Our monthly reporting let’s you see exactly what’s going on, and we’re always on the end of the phone for a friendly chat.

Of course, we’re not the only Adwords Managers in the world, but we’re probably the only ones that give away so much free information, spend as much time promoting our customers as we do ourselves, and we’d like to think we’re the hardest working

As we’ve said – you CAN do all of this yourself. And with a bit of training and education, we could probably fix a car or do the yearly accounts. But we know where our skills lie, and we’re sticking with Adwords

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When optimising an AdWords account, it’s extremely important to make sure you are tracking conversions.  These might be such items as:

• Sales, for an ecommerce website
• Brochure requests
• Call back requests
• Contact us requests

The reason you need to track conversions, is to see which keywords are working for you, so you can up the budget for these keywords, and eventually consider pausing keywords that do not convert.

Your AdWords conversion tracking code needs to be generated by going into Reporting and Tools – then Conversions.  Choose the relevant conversion type and generate the required code.  Send this code to your web designer and ask them to place it onto the people see once they completed the required action.  This is extremely important!

Now here’s where the problem occurs – it’s very common for web designers to place the code onto the contact page, or the lead page.  This then creates false conversions, and you can very rapidly end up with hundreds of them!

What will be the end result?  A falsely optimised AdWords campaign, with the results skewed by people who were just trying to find your location, or even those who were seeking totally unrelated products…

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If you are in a globally contested market but your business mainly comes from the UK, then it is sensible to focus much of your attention on making your business and marketing clearly delineated as being so.    Even if you are going for a global market, then specializing campaigns to regions can be more than just sensible, it may be necessary.

Firstly, when it comes to your Adwords campaign, you can specify that the advertisements will only appear to browsers from the UK.  There is a big difference between customers browsing from the UK and those who are looking for products sourced in the UK, so be sure that this is exactly what you are looking to do.  However, in most niches, focusing even on the whole UK at a time will be more than enough customers to deal with, and they should be closer to the customers you are looking to entice.

Secondly, you can throw in words into your Adwords ads that specify you are indeed from the UK.  Many other companies will fail to do this, as they have created sweeping Adwords they hope to garner a global market from.  Simply adding in a short term such as ‘UK’, ‘Next-day UK delivery’, ‘Local’, or ‘British’ can make your advert stand out.

You can use certain words to make your business appear smaller or larger, depending on the brand you wish to convey.  ‘UK-Wide’ service, delivery or available pegs you as a large business that still specializes in the UK market.  On the other hand, customers may prefer a more local term, which can show you are a smaller business but specific to their needs.  Sometimes, a smaller company image can bring in more business than trying to look like you are attempting to do it all.  Customers may prefer the idea they will get a more personal service, one devoid of call centers and faceless marketing blurb.

Don’t forget that this can be done on a more micro level, you can begin to specialize your campaigns for certain regions of the UK.  This is generally worthwhile if your business includes delivery or attractions which are specific to each region, for example if you run a hotel directory.   As with everything in Adwords optimization, you must decide which are the details you should focus on to best maximize your time and effort.

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