No AdWords campaign is complete without the advertisement itself.

I hear so much about the other aspects of PPC campaigns that I feel like sometimes people overlook the only part of the campaign that the consumer is actually going to read.

In this post, I’m going to go over the most important part of AdWords management and share some tips on writing amazing, eye-grabbing text ads.

Make Your Headline Relevant and Attention Worthy

Most of the time a Google searcher isn’t looking for ads, so to get them to look at the section of the page containing ads, you’ve really got to grab them. The headline needs to address what the searcher is looking for. Your ads need to prove that you have a solution for their needs. I like to use a question as a headline from time to time. For example, if they were searching “Help with AdWords” and they saw my ad reading, “Frustrated With AdWords?” they would be more inclined to break away from the organic results because I’ve addressed their need.

Tell Us Why We Should Pick You

Your next line should say, in 35 characters or less, why I should be interested in what you’re selling. Are you selling a green product, an eco-friendly product? That’s the sort of thing that is going to appeal to people if it’s a part of their search. Writing “Top Quality Eco-Friendly Lamps” is going to be more interesting to me than “Lots of Lamps For Sale” especially if I’m looking for a certain kind of lamp. Think about what excites you about your product or service, and convey that message in your ad.

Use Your Keywords

What I normally do when creating a new ad group is choose my keywords based on what words I used in my ad. That, of course, isn’t the only way to do it but it does ensure that I’m using my keywords in my text ad. The more keywords you use in your ad, the higher your quality score will be. Quality score is a major factor in how much you’ll end up paying per click, if you have a high quality score, you won’t have to pay as much for clicks that are in higher ad positions. Your landing pages also factor into your quality score, so you’ll want to make sure your keywords are represented there as well.

Employ A Call To Action

The last line of your ad needs to include a call to action to get people clicking. You can significantly increase your CTR with a simple “click to start today” or “click to buy today” at the end of your ad text. A great call to action also conveys a sense of immediacy and convenience to the consumer. They need to feel like if they buy your product, or sign up to your service, their problems will be immediately solved.

Utilize the Display URL

An oft-overlooked field in the text ad creation process is the display URL. Like everywhere else, you should definitely use a keyword in this field. You must use the domain of your site but you can add anything you want after the ‘/’ so if your ad is for snowboards, your display URL could read yourstore.com/snowboards. It’s surprising how much more effective that is than just leaving it at yourstore.com.

I’ve read many times before that your advertisement should be like a miniature landing page. That comparison makes perfect sense especially when you consider that the keywords you use in your ad should be included on your landing page for maximum quality score. Just remember, keep it relevant, keep it catchy, and use your keywords.

A Guest Post by Trace Ronning

Trace is the social media coordinator for WordWatch. They’re dedicated to delivering small business advertisers better results for their money. He blogs about small business and paid search at blog.wordwatch.com and you can follow him on twitter @WordWatchPPC.