Google AdWords can be the afterburner that get your new website off the ground, and it can be a staple in your ongoing search engine strategy. But whether it's a long or short term tool, there's a right way and a wrong way to use it.

Simply put:
- Google prefers that you not waste their time
- you prefer that Google not waste your money

One of the simplest ways you can save your money and stop wasting Google's time is to FIRE ANY NON-CONVERTING KEYWORDS.

You should constantly be testing new keywords (and ads and landing pages, but we'll talk about those later) by researching them with the Keyword Tool and adding them to appropriate ad groups and performing monthly housecleaning by killing those that
1) have the lowest impressions / clickthroughs and
2) have low conversion rates

If you have 100 keywords in your AdWords account but only 10 of them are generating actual sales or contacts on your website, you're asking Google to track 90 keywords that aren't doing either of you any good. If, on the other hand, you constantly remove the non-converting keys and end up with 100+ converters... Google starts to think that you've got something going on.

REMEMBER: Google doesn't know you or your products or your market. They only look at the raw stats to determine which advertisers have better favor with Google users. High clickthroughs mean that customers are attracted to your ads and high conversions mean that customers like your products and prices... and that's all Google hopes for.

If you and a competitor are both bidding $0.20/click for "icelandic wool sweaters" and your campaign has keywords with better clickthroughs and conversions, Google can reward you with
1) higher positions and
2) lower costs per click

I recently advised a friend to fire his nonconverting keys, and after 1 week he reported that his typical $60/day spend had dropped to $30/day AND HIS TRAFFIC HAD RISEN BY 20%. Google was now giving him higher positions and lower costs per click as a reward for only maintaining the most productive keys.