Bounce Rate

What Is Bounce Rate?
Bounce rate is defined as the percentage of visitors who enter a site and “bounce” rather than continue to view additional pages on the same site. Bounce rate is a very important metric for website owners. It basically tells you what percentages of your visitors are “bouncing” away after landing on your site (e.g., they just visit one page and leave before clicking on to a second page inside your site).

Google Analytics Benchmark Averages for Bounce Rate:

40-60% Content websites

30-50% Lead generation sites

70-98% Blogs

20-40% Retail sites

10-30% Service sites

70-90% Landing pages

A Bounce Rate can occur for several reasons:

(i) The visitor hit the “Back” button on his browser.

(ii) The visitor closed his browser.

(iii) The visitor clicked on one of your ads.

(iv) The visitor clicked on one of your external links.

(v) The visitor used the search box on his browser.

(vi) The visitor typed a new URL on his browser.

All the actions above would cause the visitor to leave your site. Provided he did any of these actions right after arriving at your site (and before clicking on to a second page), it would be counted as a bounce. In fact the formula for finding the bounce rate on your website is:

Bounce rate = Visits that left after one page / Total number of visits

A low bounce rate is an indication that your website is performing optimally, as visitors are spending a significant amount of time on it. On the other hand, a high bounce rate shows that visitors are clicking away instead of seeing all that your website has to offer. To reduce your website's bounce rate and increase its stickiness, motivate visitors to spend more time on your website with the following tips.

1. Create Compelling Content:

One of the factors that motivate people to stay on a website longer is content. Well-written content that speaks directly to the interests of your target audience will grab and hold their attention. For example, if your website is about dog breeding, your content should provide helpful tips and advice about the subject and present solutions to your target audience's most difficult challenges. Relevant, engaging content will pique the interest of your prospects and motivate them to explore your website further.

2. Maintain Keyword Integrity:

Make sure the keywords you are using in your metadata have low bounce rates and that you are reinforcing the term in the copy and content you are showing to site visitors. Your own brand or site name should have the lowest bounce rate for a keyword.

In your search marketing efforts, if the bounce rate is high for keywords you are buying, you need to either improve the landing page to reinforce the topic or bid on keywords that are more relevant to your content.

3. Encourage Visitors to Comment:

Encourage your readers to leave comments after consuming your content by asking them intriguing questions or covering hotly debated topics. Your readers will be motivated to share their views. Furthermore, reply to all comments in a friendly manner to encourage new visitors to participate in the conversation.

4.  Interlink Your Articles:

When writing an article, link to other articles you've written in the past to make it easier for readers to find additional content on your website. Not only will this minimize your website's bounce rate, it will also have a positive impact on your website's SEO.

5. Make Links Open in New Windows:

The idea behind reducing bounce rate is to ensure that visitors check out more than one page of your website, so when you link to external websites, make sure that those links open in new tabs or windows. That way, your visitors will keep the landing page (the page they reached upon visiting your site) open and also spend some time on the newly opened pages.

6. Leverage Your Sidebars:

Don't leave your sidebars empty or fill them with distracting widgets. Make good use of your sidebars by linking to valuable resources that your visitors won't be able to resist. In your sidebars, feature links to new, popular, or essential content. This will encourage people to explore your website. In addition, organize your content archives neatly to enhance the user experience and make it easier for visitors to browse all of your content.

7. Make Your Search Box Highly Visible:

If visitors can’t find what they are looking for on your website, they may get frustrated and click away, unless you give them the option to perform searches. Be sure to include a prominent search box on every page of your site to enable visitors to find the exact information they seek.

8. Display Excerpts of Content on Your Home Page:

One factor that will influence visitors' decisions regarding whether or not to explore your website further upon landing on the home page is the layout of the content. Display excerpts of your articles on the home page to entice visitors to click through and read more. Your visitors may get overwhelmed and leave if you display your content in its entirety.

9. Display Additional Articles Readers Might Like:

At the bottom of each piece of content you publish on your website, display links to other relevant articles that visitors can consume once they're finished reading. If you’re using a CMS like WordPress, there are plugins created exclusively for this purpose.

10. Create an Informative “About” Page:

After your home page, your “about” page is likely the most visited page of your website. This is because people want to find out more about you and your business. So, put your “about” page link next to your home page link in your website's main navigation bar, and provide relevant details about yourself and your products or services on your “about” page.

11. Improve Page Load Times:

Your website visitors have limited attention spans. If your website takes too long to load, they might get fed up and leave. Improve your site's page load times by getting rid of unnecessary social media widgets, images, pop-ups, and ads. Perform tests to determine what your website's page load times are and how you could improve them.

12. Check Browser Performance:

The developer who built your site might have worked exclusively in Firefox and failed to check its performance in Internet Explorer, Safari, and Google Chrome. Unfortunately, parts of your site that load fine in one type of browser struggle in others, says Whit-more. Your analytics tool can break down bounce by browser type to see if this is the culprit.

Note: Bounce rate is an important factor to consider when evaluating the performance and usability of your website. A high bounce rate indicates that something is not right. To significantly reduce your website's bounce rate and compel visitors to stick around longer, follow the above tips and improve your website's overall user experience.

Successful Code: 2xx

This class of status code indicates that the client's request was successfully received, understood, and accepted.

Code: 200 OK

The request has succeeded. The information returned with the response is dependent on the method used in the request

Created: Code 201

The request has been fulfilled and resulted in a new resource being created. The newly created resource can be referenced by the URI(s) returned in the entity of the response, with the most specific URI for the resource given by a Location header field. The response SHOULD include an entity containing a list of resource characteristics and location(s) from which the user or user agent can choose the one most appropriate. The entity format is specified by the media type given in the Content-Type header field. The origin server MUST create the resource before returning the 201 status code. If the action cannot be carried out immediately, the server SHOULD respond with 202 (Accepted) response instead.

A 201 response MAY contain an ETag response header field indicating the current value of the entity tag for the requested variant just created, see section 14.19.

Accepted: Code 202

The request has been accepted for processing, but the processing has not been completed. The request might or might not eventually be acted upon, as it might be disallowed when processing actually takes place. There is no facility for re-sending a status code from an asynchronous operation such as this.

The 202 response is intentionally non-committal. Its purpose is to allow a server to accept a request for some other process (perhaps a batch-oriented process that is only run once per day) without requiring that the user agent's connection to the server persist until the process is completed. The entity returned with this response SHOULD include an indication of the request's current status and either a pointer to a status monitor or some estimate of when the user can expect the request to be fulfilled.

Non-Authoritative Information: Code 203

The returned met information in the entity-header is not the definitive set as available from the origin server, but is gathered from a local or a third-party copy. The set presented MAY be a subset or superset of the original version. For example, including local annotation information about the resource might result in a superset of the met information known by the origin server. Use of this response code is not required and is only appropriate when the response would otherwise be 200 (OK).

No Content: Code 204

The server has fulfilled the request but does not need to return an entity-body, and might want to return updated met information. The response MAY include new or updated met information in the form of entity-headers, which if present SHOULD be associated with the requested variant.

If the client is a user agent, it SHOULD NOT change its document view from that which caused the request to be sent. This response is primarily intended to allow input for actions to take place without causing a change to the user agent's active document view, although any new or updated met information SHOULD be applied to the document currently in the user agent's active view.

The 204 response MUST NOT include a message-body, and thus is always terminated by the first empty line after the header fields.

Reset Content: Code 205

The server has fulfilled the request and the user agent SHOULD reset the document view which caused the request to be sent. This response is primarily intended to allow input for actions to take place via user input, followed by a clearing of the form in which the input is given so that the user can easily initiate another input action. The response MUST NOT include an entity.

Partial Content: Code 206

The server has fulfilled the partial GET request for the resource. The request MUST have included a Range header field (section 14.35) indicating the desired range, and MAY have included an If-Range header field (section 14.27) to make the request conditional.

Redirection Code: 3xx

This class of status code indicates that further action needs to be taken by the user agent in order to fulfill the request. The action required may be carried out by the user agent without interaction with the user if and only if the method used in the second request is get or head. A client should detect infinite redirection loops, since such loops generate network traffic for each redirection.

      Note: previous versions of this specification recommended a

      maximum of five redirections. Content developers should be aware

      that there might be clients that implement such a fixed

      limitation.

Multiple Choices: Code 300

The requested resource corresponds to any one of a set of representations, each with its own specific location, and agent- driven negotiation information (section 12) is being provided so that the user (or user agent) can select a preferred representation and redirect its request to that location.

Unless it was a head request, the response should include an entity containing a list of resource characteristics and location(s) from which the user or user agent can choose the one most appropriate. The entity format is specified by the media type given in the Content- Type header field. Depending upon the format and the capabilities of the user agent, selection of the most appropriate choice may be performed automatically. However, this specification does not define any standard for such automatic selection.

If the server has a preferred choice of representation, it should include the specific URI for that representation in the Location field; user agents may use the Location field value for automatic redirection. This response is cacheable unless indicated otherwise.

Moved Permanently: Code 301

The requested resource has been assigned a new permanent URI and any future references to this resource should use one of the returned URIs. Clients with link editing capabilities ought to automatically re-link references to the Request-URI to one or more of the new references returned by the server, where possible. This response is cacheable unless indicated otherwise.

The new permanent URI should be given by the Location field in the response. Unless the request method was head, the entity of the response should contain a short hypertext note with a hyperlink to the new URI(s).

If the 301 status code is received in response to a request other than get or head, the user agent must not automatically redirect the request unless it can be confirmed by the user, since this might change the conditions under which the request was issued.

      Note: When automatically redirecting a post request after

      receiving a 301 status code, some existing HTTP/1.0 user agents

      will erroneously change it into a get request.

Found: Code 302

The requested resource resides temporarily under a different URI. Since the redirection might be altered on occasion, the client should continue to use the Request-URI for future requests. This response is only cacheable if indicated by a Cache-Control or Expires header field.

The temporary URI should be given by the Location field in the response. Unless the request method was head, the entity of the response should contain a short hypertext note with a hyperlink to the new URI(s).

If the 302 status code is received in response to a request other than get or head, the user agent must not automatically redirect the request unless it can be confirmed by the user, since this might change the conditions under which the request was issued.

      Note: RFC 1945 and RFC 2068 specify that the client is not allowed

      to change the method on the redirected request.  However, most

      existing user agent implementations treat 302 as if it were a 303

      response, performing a get on the Location field-value regardless

      of the original request method. The status codes 303 and 307 have

      been added for servers that wish to make unambiguously clear which

      kind of reaction is expected of the client.

See Other: Code 303

The response to the request can be found under a different URI and should be retrieved using a GET method on that resource. This method exists primarily to allow the output of a POST-activated script to redirect the user agent to a selected resource. The new URI is not a substitute reference for the originally requested resource. The 303 response must not be cached, but the response to the second (redirected) request might be cacheable.

The different URI should be given by the Location field in the response. Unless the request method was head, the entity of the response should contain a short hypertext note with a hyperlink to the new URI(s).

      Note: Many pre-HTTP/1.1 user agents do not understand the 303

      status. When interoperability with such clients is a concern, the

      302 status code may be used instead, since most user agents react

      to a 302 response as described here for 303.

Not Modified: Code 304

If the client has performed a conditional GET request and access is allowed, but the document has not been modified, the server should respond with this status code. The 304 response MUST NOT contain a message-body, and thus is always terminated by the first empty line after the header fields.

Use Proxy: Code 305

The requested resource MUST be accessed through the proxy given by the Location field. The Location field gives the URI of the proxy. The recipient is expected to repeat this single request via the proxy. 305 responses MUST only be generated by origin servers.

      Note: RFC 2068 was not clear that 305 was intended to redirect a

      single request, and to be generated by origin servers only.  Not

      observing these limitations has significant security consequences.

Temporary Redirect: Code 307

The requested resource resides temporarily under a different URI. Since the redirection may be altered on occasion, the client should continue to use the Request-URI for future requests. This response is only cacheable if indicated by a Cache-Control or Expires header field.

The temporary URI should be given by the Location field in the response. Unless the request method was HEAD, the entity of the response should contain a short hypertext note with a hyperlink to the new URI(s) , since many pre-HTTP/1.1 user agents do not understand the 307 status. Therefore, the note should contain the information necessary for a user to repeat the original request on the new URI.

If the 307 status code is received in response to a request other than GET or HEAD, the user agent must not automatically redirect the request unless it can be confirmed by the user, since this might change the conditions under which the request was issued.

Client Error Code: 4XX

The 4xx class of status code is intended for cases in which the client seems to have erred. Except when responding to a head request, the server should include an entity containing an explanation of the error situation, and whether it is a temporary or permanent condition. These status codes are applicable to any request method. User agents should display any included entity to the user.

If the client is sending data, a server implementation using TCP should be careful to ensure that the client acknowledges receipt of the packet(s) containing the response, before the server closes the input connection. If the client continues sending data to the server after the close, the server's TCP stack will send a reset packet to the client, which may erase the client's unacknowledged input buffers before they can be read and interpreted by the HTTP application.

Bad Request: Code 400

The request could not be understood by the server due to malformed syntax. The client should not repeat the request without modifications.

Unauthorized: Code 401

The request requires user authentication. The response must include a www-authenticate header field (section 14.47) containing a challenge applicable to the requested resource. The client may repeat the request with a suitable Authorization header field (section 14.8). If the request already included Authorization credentials, then the 401 response indicates that authorization has been refused for those credentials. If the 401 response contains the same challenge as the prior response, and the user agent has already attempted authentication at least once, then the user should be presented the entity that was given in the response, since that entity might include relevant diagnostic information. HTTP access authentication is explained in "HTTP Authentication: Basic and Digest Access Authentication".

Payment Required: Code 402

This code is reserved for future use.

Forbidden: Code 403

The server understood the request, but is refusing to fulfill it. Authorization will not help and the request should not be repeated. If the request method was not head and the server wishes to make public why the request has not been fulfilled, it should describe the reason for the refusal in the entity. If the server does not wish to make this information available to the client, the status code 404 (Not found) can be used instead.

Not Found: Code 404

The server has not found anything matching the Request-URI. no indication is given of whether the condition is temporary or permanent. The 410 (Gone) status code should be used if the server knows, through some internally configurable mechanism, that an old resource is permanently unavailable and has no forwarding address. This status code is commonly used when the server does not wish to reveal exactly why the request has been refused, or when no other response is applicable.

Method Not Allowed: Code 405

The method specified in the Request-Line is not allowed for the resource identified by the Request-URI. The response MUST include an Allow header containing a list of valid methods for the requested resource.

Not Acceptable: Code 406

The resource identified by the request is only capable of generating response entities which have content characteristics not acceptable according to the accept headers sent in the request.

Unless it was a head request, the response should include an entity containing a list of available entity characteristics and location(s) from which the user or user agent can choose the one most appropriate. The entity format is specified by the media type given in the Content-Type header field. Depending upon the format and the capabilities of the user agent, selection of the most appropriate choice may be performed automatically. However, this specification does not define any standard for such automatic selection.

Note: HTTP/1.1 servers are allowed to return responses which are

      not acceptable according to the accept headers sent in the

      request. In some cases, this may even be preferable to sending a

      406 response. User agents are encouraged to inspect the headers of

      an incoming response to determine if it is acceptable.

Proxy Authentication Required: Code 407

This code is similar to 401 (Unauthorized), but indicates that the client must first authenticate itself with the proxy. The proxy must return a Proxy-Authenticate header field (section 14.33) containing a challenge applicable to the proxy for the requested resource. The client may repeat the request with a suitable Proxy-Authorization header field (section 14.34). HTTP access authentication is explained in "HTTP Authentication: Basic and Digest Access Authentication".

Request Timeout: Code 408

The client did not produce a request within the time that the server was prepared to wait. The client may repeat the request without modifications at any later time.

Conflict: Code 409

The request could not be completed due to a conflict with the current state of the resource. This code is only allowed in situations where it is expected that the user might be able to resolve the conflict and resubmit the request. The response body should include enough information for the user to recognize the source of the conflict. Ideally, the response entity would include enough information for the user or user agent to fix the problem; however, that might not be possible and is not required.

Conflicts are most likely to occur in response to a PUT request. For example, if versioning were being used and the entity being PUT included changes to a resource which conflict with those made by an earlier (third-party) request, the server might use the 409 response to indicate that it can't complete the request. In this case, the response entity would likely contain a list of the differences between the two versions in a format defined by the response Content-Type.

Gone: Code 410

The requested resource is no longer available at the server and no forwarding address is known. This condition is expected to be considered permanent. Clients with link editing capabilities should delete references to the Request-URI after user approval. If the server does not know, or has no facility to determine, whether or not the condition is permanent, the status code 404 (Not Found) should be used instead. This response is cacheable unless indicated otherwise.

The 410 response is primarily intended to assist the task of web maintenance by notifying the recipient that the resource is intentionally unavailable and that the server owners desire that remote links to that resource be removed. Such an event is common for limited-time, promotional services and for resources belonging to individuals no longer working at the server's site. It is not necessary to mark all permanently unavailable resources as "gone" or to keep the mark for any length of time -- that is left to the discretion of the server owner.

Length Required: Code 411

The server refuses to accept the request without a defined Content- Length. The client may repeat the request if it adds a valid Content-Length header field containing the length of the message-body in the request message.

Precondition Failed: Code 412

The precondition given in one or more of the request-header fields evaluated to false when it was tested on the server. This response code allows the client to place preconditions on the current resource metain formation (header field data) and thus prevent the requested method from being applied to a resource other than the one intended.

Request Entity Too Large: Code 413

The server is refusing to process a request because the request entity is larger than the server is willing or able to process. The server may close the connection to prevent the client from continuing the request.

If the condition is temporary, the server should include a Retry- After header field to indicate that it is temporary and after what time the client may try again.

Request-URI Too Long: Code 414

The server is refusing to service the request because the Request-URI is longer than the server is willing to interpret. This rare condition is only likely to occur when a client has improperly converted a post request to a get request with long query information, when the client has descended into a URI "black hole" of redirection (e.g., a redirected URI prefix that points to a suffix of itself), or when the server is under attack by a client attempting to exploit security holes present in some servers using fixed-length buffers for reading or manipulating the Request-URI.

Unsupported Media Type: Code 415

The server is refusing to service the request because the entity of the request is in a format not supported by the requested resource for the requested method.

Requested Range Not Satisfiable: Code 416

A server should return a response with this status code if a request included a Range request-header field (section 14.35), and none of the range-specifier values in this field overlap the current extent of the selected resource, and the request did not include an If-Range request-header field. (For byte-ranges, this means that the first- byte-pos of all of the byte-range-spec values were greater than the current length of the selected resource.)

When this status code is returned for a byte-range request, the response should include a Content-Range entity-header field specifying the current length of the selected resource (see section 14.16). This response must not use the multipart/byteranges content- type.

Expectation Failed: Code 417

The expectation given in an Expect request-header field (see section 14.20) could not be met by this server, or, if the server is a proxy, the server has unambiguous evidence that the request could not be met by the next-hop server.

Server Error Code: 5XX

Response status codes beginning with the digit "5" indicate cases in which the server is aware that it has erred or is incapable of performing the request. Except when responding to a HEAD request, the server SHOULD include an entity containing an explanation of the error situation, and whether it is a temporary or permanent condition. User agents SHOULD display any included entity to the user. These response codes are applicable to any request method.

Internal Server Error: Code 500

The server encountered an unexpected condition which prevented it from fulfilling the request.

Not Implemented: Code 501

The server does not support the functionality required to fulfill the request. This is the appropriate response when the server does not recognize the request method and is not capable of supporting it for any resource.

Bad Gateway: Code 502

The server, while acting as a gateway or proxy, received an invalid response from the upstream server it accessed in attempting to fulfill the request.

Service Unavailable: Code 503

The server is currently unable to handle the request due to a temporary overloading or maintenance of the server. The implication is that this is a temporary condition which will be alleviated after some delay. If known, the length of the delay MAY be indicated in a Retry-After header. If no Retry-After is given, the client SHOULD handle the response as it would for a 500 response.

      Note: The existence of the 503 status code does not imply that a

      server must use it when becoming overloaded. Some servers may wish

      to simply refuse the connection.

Gateway Timeout: Code 504

The server, while acting as a gateway or proxy, did not receive a timely response from the upstream server specified by the URI (e.g. HTTP, FTP, LDAP) or some other auxiliary server (e.g. DNS) it needed to access in attempting to complete the request.

      Note: Note to implementors: some deployed proxies are known to

      return 400 or 500 when DNS lookups time out.

HTTP Version Not Supported: Code 505

The server does not support, or refuses to support, the HTTP protocol version that was used in the request message. The server is indicating that it is unable or unwilling to complete the request using the same major version as the client, as described in section 3.1, other than with this error message. The response SHOULD contain an entity describing why that version is not supported and what other protocols are supported by that server.

Google Dance

Google Dance is an out-dated slang term used to describe the period of time in which Google used to rebuild its rankings, and as a result of this rebuilding, rankings of Web sites on Google's SERP may fluctuate in order during a several day period. The "Google Dance" would happen anywhere up to 36 times per year, however in 2003 Google begin updating its index on a weekly basis, which all but eliminated the Google Dance.

"Google Dance can be defined as an update of the search engine giant for indexing the results, recalculating the Page Ranks of every page the bot has crawled."

Approximately once a month, Google update their index by recalculating the Page Ranks of each of the web pages that they have crawled. The period during the update is known as the Google dance.

Because of the nature of Page Rank, the calculations need to be performed about 40 times and, because the index is so large, the calculations take several days to complete. During this period, the search results fluctuate; sometimes minute-by minute. It is because of these fluctuations that the term, Google Dance, was coined. The dance usually takes place sometime during the last third of each month.

Google has two other servers that can be used for searching. The search results on them also change during the monthly update and they are part of the Google dance.

For the rest of the month, fluctuations sometimes occur in the search results, but they should not be confused with the actual dance. They are due to Google's fresh crawl and to what is known "Ever flux".

PPC Campaign

How to set up PPC Campaign :

Purchase of sponsored links on the pages of the search engines that display results. Many people think that it is a stop-gap measure that is used in the intervening time before a sustained SEO campaign take effect. However, if used effectively and systematically, Pay per Click can be used for a long period of time and in conjunction with all kinds of internet marketing campaigns.

Some Step To PPC Campaign Setup

Account Structure Determination :

The first step is to understand how your account will be structured. It is usually best to consider the product or service that you are offering at it's most granular level and create your account like a tree. So if you have a site selling a software product or products, you should create a new campaign for each feature. For example, if you are selling some sort of image editing software, you should have a different campaign for "image editing" and a different campaign for "photo editing" and so and so forth. Inside each of your campaigns you should have generic ad groups (like a "cheap image editing software" group and a "buy image editing software" group) as well as an ad group for all the features relating to the root keyword (image editing). This may seem blindingly obvious but you'd be surprised how many advertisers just lump everything into a "software" adgroup with the default "campaign #1″ name. The tree should branch out immediately, more like a bush. So keeping image editing as an example, a single campaign will look like the attached image. Note, there are actually a few in this example.

Keyword Research :

The second step is keyword research. There have been a million posts on a million blogs about this topic, so I won't go into it. Let's just assume that you have generated a nice keyword list for each of your ad groups using your favourite keyword research tool. Wordtracker, SEO book's KW tool, Keyword Discovery and HitWise are all great tools. Each has individual pros and cons but for now, compile your list an move on. We will expand on this later on in the campaign setup but for now, we should have as big a keyword list as possible with all the keywords and phrases not related to your business taken out and put in a separate "negative" list/file. We will also use this at a later stage in the setup.

Set Up Campaign :

The third step in setting up your PPC account is creating a new search network only campaign. I wont go through the steps to create a new keyword targeted campaign but please look out for the options that are not set by default. The first setting you need to change is the network settings by removing the check from the "Content Network" checkbox. The content network can be very valuable so I do not recommend ignoring the content network completely. We will set up a new content network only campaign later or in another account. You also need to make sure that your ad serving option is set to "rotate" so you can split test your ads and your delivery method is set to "accelerated". The last option may not apply to you if you are working with a very small budget, but in general, you want to max out your budget initially if you can afford it to get some numbers to work with.

Build A Negative Keyword List :

The fourth step is creating a new keyword list. A list of terms you do not want your ads triggered for. Google has recently removed/hidden it's negative keyword builder so have a read of our negative keyword tips. You should have at least a few terms already from building your keyword list in step 2. You also know your business so sit down with your colleagues for 5 minutes and brainstorm some negative words too. Another tip is to run a search query report in AdWords if you are already running a PPC campaign and mine the negatives out of that. You can also go into your analytics package and look at what keywords people are finding your site for and take negatives out of that. For those queries in the search query report that Google does not want you to see, have a read of apollo SEM's guide to extract all the data. Once you think you have all the negative keywords you can think of, add them to your campaign immediately. In my opinion no campaign should ever start without negative keywords.

Create Your Root AdGroup & Ads :

What we need to do now is create a default, generic adgroup and ad. The ad should be action oriented and describe your product. Create your ad with strong words and use our guide to link them words with a strong call to action. This ad is only going to be our default ad for setup. We will not be using this ad in production. It should accurately reflect your product or service so you do not start off with a poor quality score. So assuming we are setting up the "Image Resize Software" campaign, we create an ad with "Image Resize Software" in the title and at least once in the ad copy. No need to tweak just yet, this is only for setup. We like to call this initial adgroup "Campaign Name Root". What we need to do now is dump all the keywords from our keyword list into this adgroup. There could be thousands, that does not matter. We will separate them all further on. The important thing is to setup this root campaign and have all the keywords possible thrown in. Once setup is complete, confirm all your actions and your campaign will go live. Pause this campaign immediately. We will be doing a lot more work on the campaign so we do not want it live.

Download Your New Campaign & Split It Up :

Now we really get to have some fun. If you have not done so already, download AdWords Editor and download your account containing your new campaign with the root adgroup. What we need to do now is use the "keyword grouper" tool within AdWords editor to group our keywords by theme (Check the screenshot to see how to access this tool). When given the option to "copy text ads from a template" select yes as we will use our default root text ad for now. Finish the process and you will have lots of ad groups divided into common "themes". Upload the new campaign with the newly separated adgroups to Google and log out of AdWords editor for now.

Manually Create New Ads For Each AdGroup :

The next step we need to take is to go back into AdWords and create new and custom ads for each adgroup. If you are stuck for time, create a minimum of two ads per group. If you want to start off strong, create at least four ads for testing. It is absolutely essential that we use the "theme" keyword in in our ads titles. AdWords editor makes this easy by naming the adgroup the same name as the "theme" word. The "theme" word should also be used in the ad copy if possible and absolutely in the display URL as either a "fake" sub directory or a "fake" subdomain. The reason for this is so that AdWords will assign a decent initial quality score to your keywords and so that anyone searching for your keyword will see the exact keywords they searched for bolded in your ad. You should set the destination URL to either the category/product page or if you have the time, an individual landing page for that product and keyword combined. Make sure that your ads are compelling, are grammatically correct and have a clear call to action. You may also want to take this opportunity to create some Dymanic Keyword Insertion powered ads

Expand Your Keywords :

At this point we like to go into each adgroup and use the AdWords keyword too to expand our keyword list. Copy all the keywords from your adgroup and paste them into the keyword tool making sure the "use synonyms" box is checked. The AdWords keyword tool will give you a list of possible other terms you might want to add to the adgroup that you may not have thought about (as well as give some additional keywords for your negative list). In some cases, you may also want to use the in built keyword pad tool to duplicate all your keywords using different match types. A lot of times different match types cost different prices and convert differently. Once you have a packed up your adgroups with relevant keywords, you are almost good to go.

Duplicate,Track,Monitor,Succeed :

Once you have all your search campaigns ready to go, your final step is to make sure that your analytics package is installed correctly and that your ads are showing up in the countries you are targeting. Insure that your conversion tracking is working correctly and place a test order if necessary. Once you are sure you are setup correctly, you can now duplicate your campaigns for content network use (Simply copy and paste in AdWords Editor) and for use on other PPC networks. Please note that your campaigns will almost always perform differently on the content network and on your other PPC accounts. You should modify your bids and check your status on these accounts individually.