As you probably know, Google Adwords is a pay-per-click solution offered by Google. As with other PPCs, you are given the ability to place your small advertisement on various platforms controlled by Google. While the platform provides you with a large audience, you must manipulate your keywords to generate success.

Matching Options

When running an Adwords campaign, you can and should define when your keywords will appear in search results. To do this, you can select matching options for each of your keywords to either reach a broad audience or target a niche.

The Google Adwords platform allows you to select four matching options:

Broad Match

Broad match is the default setting for an Adwords campaign. Broad match means your ad will appear in search results when any combination of the words in your keyword phrase search. Many an advertiser has learned expensive lessons using this setting. Let's look at an example.

Assume I am selling travel writing diaries and using "travel journals" as my keyword phrase. Any time a person enters any combination of "travel" and "journals" in a search, my ad will appear. The ad will also appear for plurals and relevant variations. While this may sound great at first glance, a broad match setting can result in low quality hits and poor conversion rates. A person searching for travel journal stories is going to see my link. While a decent percentage will click my link, they are far less likely to buy because they are just browsing. Using broad match, my costs go up and my conversions go down.

Broad match isn't necessarily a bad option. If your product makes a popular Christmas gift, you definitely want to use the broad match option in November and December. You prospective clients will be motivated to buy. Even the "browsing" surfers will convert well.

Phrase Match

Phrase match is a matching option that gives you a bit more control over your ads. Phrase match tells the Adwords platform to only show your ad when a search is conducted for the particular order of your keyword phrase. Using the phrase match option for "travel journals", my ad would appear when someone search for a phrase with "travel journals" in it, but not "journals travel". To use phrase match for keyword phrases, you simply place quotation marks around them.

Exact Match

Exact match is...exact match. It is the most targeted option. You should use it only if you want your ad to appear in searches for the exact keyword phrase as written. For instance, if I want my ad to appear in searches for "travel journals" and nothing else, I will use the exact match. To select the exact match option, simply place brackets ("[]") around the keyword phrase.

Negative Match

No, the negative match option doesn't involve cussing, insults or adult sites. Instead, it allows you to designate which keyword phrase search results you do not want your ad to appear in. For example, I may not want my travel journal product to appear in search results for "Amazon travel journals". I would simply list the keyword phrase with a dash (-) in front of it and my ad will not appear. The negative match option is a tremendous option for eliminating junk traffic from your Adwords campaign.

The Google Adwords platform is a tremendous advertising platform. Effectively manipulate your keywords and it can be a highly profitable one as well.