In case you haven’t heard, Google is an extremely powerful company when it comes to all things internet. If you look at how your visitors find your site, I’m willing to bet that the overwhelming majority come somehow from Google. Be it organic SEO or a paid AdWords campaign, Google can make or break your efforts online. So what happens when Google decides to “break” you? Here’s a quick story about just that.

Rick Stratton had done everything right, and his traffic was showing. He had a travel guide that was well trafficked, with many visitors coming to his site from an AdWords campaign he was running. The campaign was very successful, with up to a 4% click through rate.

Then it all stopped.

All of the sudden his ads weren’t being shown anymore, because of a low quality score. When Rick looked to see what he could do to have his ads run again, the AdWords diagnostic tools said that he needed to up his bid. So he went from $.07 all the way to $1.00, and still didn’t have results.

All of the sudden, Rick’s travel site was effectively shut down. And he couldn’t even get a single person at Google to tell him why. Check out the whole store here on his blog.

SEO and PPC advertising are keys to an effective web strategy, and Google is almost the only game in town. What would happen to your business if you no longer ranked in organic search and your AdWords campaign wasn’t even showing ads anymore?

When people go to search for something on Google they have a very specific need. When they arrive at the results page they quickly scan the headline of the top results to determine which page might hold the answer to their questions. For many Google users, they also search the ads placed around the search results. What would you say if I told you that you could have your ad automatically include exactly what they searched for? Not only is this possible, it’s easy. And it is one sure fire way of increasing your click through rates and lowers PPC costs.

Google calls this technique “Dynamic Keyword Insertion” since whatever keyword is searched is dynamically placed inside of your ad. You can have the keyword placed anywhere in your ad by using this syntax:

{keyword: }

To use this tool, simply place {keyword: } wherever you want the keyword to appear in your ad. “But what if the keyword is too long to fit in the ad” you ask? That’s why there is a : after the keyword, so you must put your default text after the colon.

Here’s an example. Lets say you have a shoe company and your ads are showing for a huge range of different types of shoes. Rather than creating different ads for every type of shoe you sell, use dynamic keyword insertion. Here’s what your ad will look like when you create the ad in AdWords:

So let’s say you’re bidding on a broad match of the word Stiletto. If someone searches for the term “black stilettos”, your ad will appear like this:

Black Stilettos at MyStore
Huge Selection of Black Stilettos
Free overnight shipping available!
www.MyStore.com

Another tip for dynamics keyword insertion is that you can use the capitalization of {KeyWord: } to effect the capitalization of your ad. Here’s a quick guide:

{KeyWord: } – First word of every term is capitalized
{keyword: } – No words are capitalized
{KEYWORD: } – Every letter in the terms are capitalized
{Keyword: } – The first letter of the first term is capitalized, but subsequent are not.

This is a hugely powerful tool if used correctly. You still need to separate different types of ad groups, but this is not only a big time saver but a sure fire way to increase click through rates. As always, be sure to have multiple ad variants in order to test what has the best click through rates. If you haven’t used dynamic keyword insertion before, this is another great tool to have in your arsenal.