Whenever you think of AdWords, what comes to mind? Many people may consider the platform to be a great way to gain exposure for their website or blog, while others may feel it is a money pit. Your impression of the network probably depends in large part on how successful your ad campaigns have been in the past. The reality is that AdWords is a great utility for virtually any webmaster, blogger or marketer who wants to gain valuable attention for a product, service or cause. There is simply not enough space on the network, though, to ensure that your ads are always seen without some tricks and considerations being made to augment ad performance. If your ads have not been performing as you believe they should or if you simply want to squeeze out a bit more efficiency in terms of cost per click, then continue reading to find out about the best ways you can become more competitive in Google Adwords.

Follow Searchers’ Eyes

One of the most important elements of marketing is knowing how to attract the eyes of your readers or viewers. What if you could find where their eyes are naturally gravitating and insert your ads here, instead of following conventional wisdom? As you are pinging sites with links to your projects and services, it is important to remember that heat maps can be one of the best ways to determine search traffic. There are several heat maps out there that show the typical behavior of searchers and how they interact with SERPs, which can be used to better configure your own ads. You may discover that an action verb is better placed at the beginning of an ad, or that an ad further down the page is not such a bad proposition.

Understand Ranking Scores

Any ad that is placed on Google Adwords is bound to be tumbled through its ranking system to determine how it will be placed in relation to other ads. What is the common formula for this? It is relatively simple: take your maximum bid and multiply it by your ad campaign’s quality score in order to determine rank. This is not a uniform answer, as other competitors will also have ranking scores to consider. You can, however, use a variety of tools in your Adwords arsenal to gather whether your bid is high enough for a given niche. Once you have determined that your overall ranking score is high enough for success, you can rest assured that individuals will see your ads and that they will be prominently featured in select SERPs.

Test, Test, Test

The final way that you can continue to be more competitive in Adwords is to constantly test new variables and campaigns. An alteration to how you are pinging sites to Google may boost your click-through rate or affect ad relevance, so do not be afraid to engage in some A/B testing. Various keywords and headlines can be tested to see which ones perform the best, while some objective elements can be implemented to ensure better performance (for instance, numbers always attract more attention than letters).