Doing the Unthinkable - Deleting Keywords!
I get this all the time…
“Lawrence, I am getting slapped by Google up the wazzu!”
I ask, “well, how many keywords do you have and what sort of CTRs are they getting?”
“Well, I have 100 keywords inside one adgroup and 72 of them haven’t really gotten any impressions…”
“Well, DELETE THEM then!”
…
And of course, they don’t. I’ll let you in on a lil’ secret, Google hates that. Google hates seeing a bunch of keywords in your campaign that aren’t getting impressions nor clicks. They construe that as irrelevant, and the last thing you want is to come across as irrelevant to Google. That’ll kill your campaign.
The old method of setting up an AdWords campaign which involves throwing mudd against the wall hoping some will stick doesn’t work anymore. Google no longer likes you having hundreds and thousands of keywords in your campaigns in hopes that a few of them will luckily work out for you.
No no… They punish you now. They look at actions like as an affront. They then look at you as a stupid marketer that needs to be slapped - and they are more than happy to do so. So the Google hammer comes down and you all of a sudden see your bids jack up to $5.00 and $10.00. Ouch.
To help avoid this you need to first start by making sure your keywords are relevant to what you are advertising. Take some time an actually THINK about this for a moment. Do some research. Use tools such as WordTracker and SEO Book to help you come up with relevant keywords.
And for the love gawd, be grown up about it and don’t be afraid to clean house once in a while.
A certain keyword hasn’t been generating any impressions for a while now? Get rid of it!
Another keyword gets you load of clicks but no sales? Delete it!
Look, there are two ways to optimize your campaign:
- Add more keywords in search for profitable ones
- Trim away keywords that are NOT performing
This is no AdWords Secret: Do both and you’ll see your campaigns flourish.
Lawrence Talent