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Google AdWords. They make it seem so easy - just follow the sign up process and your ads will be displayed all over the internet.

For a price!

That price is your bank balance unless you know the best ways of beating AdWords and making it work for you, rather than the other way around.

Follow these simple tips to help make your AdWords campaign profitable.

Bid lower for the content network. When you first sign up, Google tick all the boxes for you, including the "content network". These are the sites where smaller publishers display Google AdWords adverts and Google share the advertising revenue. They deliver traffic, sure, but they're not always as high quality as the main Google search engine. So you need to tick the box that Google left unticked that will allow you to bid lower for content network ads. Play with the figure but between 10% and 20% of your regular bid price seems to work well for most people.

Put square brackets round your keywords. So instead of your keyword being:

beating AdWords

it becomes:

[beating AdWords]

That way your advert will only be shown when someone searches for your exact phrases. Your ads won't be shown as often but that's fine as you'll know that when they do show, people are looking for exactly what you're selling. Otherwise your ads could be shown for phrases like "beating AdWords free", where you're unlikely to make any money if someone clicks.

Capture people's email address when they click. Devise a landing page (that meets Google's new standards) and offer a free gift in exchange for your potential customer's email address. Then you can keep in touch with them over the coming weeks and months and stand a much higher chance of getting them to spend money with you.