The fact you can buy your website a good listing in the search results of Google has never been a very well kept secret.

You have probably seen the sponsered listings on Google's search results the last time you executed a search. They appear on the right side of the search results page, and often up to the first three positions on the left side. These websites are marketing their ads through Google Adwords pay-per-click (or PPC) platform. An ad incurs an impressions when Google displays the ad on the search results page. An advertiser pays for the click when you click on one of the sponsored listings. In other words, that advertiser pays Google per each click their ad receives.

The final cost of the click that is ultimately payed to Google, is impacted by the quality score of the landing page. Quality score is dictated by a lot of different factors, including the relevance of the landing page content to the search term, and the Click Through Rate, or "CTR".

Click through rate is the rate of clicks to impressions. If your ad has 100 impressions, and receives 25 clicks, then your CTR is 25%. A high CTR signals to Google that you are showing a relevant ad for the search phrase, and this will improve your quality score for that keyword.

The higher your landing page quality score, the lower you will pay per click. Adwords is essentially an auction. You bid on keywords. In very simple terms, the more you bid, the higher your ad will be displayed.

Now there are a number of valuations and specific calculations Google makes to define where your ad will be placed. These calculations occur in real time when a search is being conducted. We’ll take a closer look at the specifics of these calculations in a future article. For today, it is just important to be aware of that your bid, is not what you will ultimately pay for the click. If you bid $5.00 for a click, and your quality score is 4, you will pay more for a click then if your quality score is 8, and you will never pay more then your bid, or $5.00, for a click.

Remember Google’s 1st priority is to showcase relevant search results, even for the paid results. They could just give the first spot to the person who bids the most, but that would only ensure the person willing to spend the most money would be listed first. The most relevant search result however may not be the highest bidder.

A great example of this is your company name. Let’s say you are Adidas, and you want to bid on the keyword "Nike". The most relevant search result for the keyword "Nike", is obviously the Nike website. Google is going to give Nike a higher quality score for that keyword, in effect rewarding them for their relevancy for that keyword.

Before we look at tips to improving your quality score, it’s important to also understand match types. There are three match types you can and should bid on for each keyword. The three match types are exact, phrase and broad.

Exact Match: Exact match is the best keyword to bid on. An exact match means the search phrase being searched on is an exact match for the keyword for which you are bidding. For example if you are bidding on exact match for "Accounting Firms", your website's ad will be displayed only when someone searches for "Accounting Firms".

Phrase Match: Phrase match means your keyword is a phrase within the search string. For example, if you bid on a phrase match of "Accounting Firms", you ad will be displayed when someone searches on things like "small accounting firms", or "accounting firms and CPAs".

Broad Match: Broad match essentially let’s the search engine decide if the search phrase is a match for your broad match keyword or not. Bidding on broad match keywords is both imperative, and dangerous. It’s important because a broad match for "accounting firms" might be triggered when someone searches for "accounting services". It also can be triggered when someone misspells a word, such as "acounting firms". The danger is that Google may determine that "Accounting Supplies" is a close enough match to "Accounting Services", and trigger your broad match keyword. This is why Google allows advertisers to declare "negative keywords". We'll talk more about negative keywords in a moment.

Now that you have an understanding about your keyword match types and website's quality score, here are some ideas on how you can improve your quality score and click through rates.

Ad Copy

The copy in your ad should reflect the search phrase, or keyword you are bidding on. The person doing the search will be more apt to click an ad that has their search string. For example, if you bid on "CPA Services", you want the headline of your ad to be something like "Quality CPA Services". If your ad title says "Bob's Financial Consulting", the person doing the search then has to stop and think... if they click your sponsored link, are they going to find what they are looking for? They often make their decision within a split second, so you don’t want the prospect to have to stop and think. Show them exactly what they are looking for. If that means having 25 different ad titles for 25 different keywords, so be it. Your work will pay off in the end.

Landing Page

The page on your site that the searcher is taken to when they click your ad is called the landing page. Ordinarily this should not be your website’s homepage. If someone searches for "Strategic Business Planning", they should be taken directly to the page on your website that explains your business planning services rather than a generic accounting related homepage. If the ad goes to your homepage, and they have to search through a big pile of CPA related content just to find what they are looking for, they'll probably just click the back button and go to the next advertiser.

If your website doesn't have a suitable landing page for the keyword, add one. It really is that important.

Similar to the ad copy, you want to remove as much of the decision making out the process as possible. Make it as easy as possible for the searcher to find what it is they are looking for. Your quality score will be rewarded for having a landing page that is specific to the keyword, because it improves the search experience for people who find you through their search engine.

Negative Keywords

Knowing the keywords you don't want to trigger your ads is just as important as knowing what keywords you do want to bid on. Phrase and broad matching make this valuable. If you bid on the broad match of "accounting services", you probably do not want your ad displayed if someone searches on "accounting supplies", so you would want to add "supplies" as a negative keyword.

Your ad will not be displayed, when a search phrase includes one of your negative keywords.

Location Targeting

I've saved the best for last. Location targeting is extremely important, especially for firms that provide a service such as accounting or CPA services. If you provide CPA services you will want to be able to meet with your client, and more importantly the client is very likely looking for a accountant close to home. Having propsects more then 100 miles away clicking on yoru ad is going to become a big waste of money.

There are two ways to target a location. The first is to target your ads to only be displayed within a certain radius, such as 10 to 20 miles from your business location. You might bid on more general keywords, like "tax preparation", within a very specific location.

The second way to target location is with very specific keywords in a more general area. For example, you might display your ads to anyone in California, or even the country, if they type in the specific keyword "Los Angeles CPA" or "Los Angeles Accounting".

Keep these basic principles in mind while you're setting up your websites with Adwords campaigns and you'll find the learning curve a lot easier and your initial results will be a lot more profitable!