A library full of know-how

I thought I'd make a quick post while I'm at uni in the lab researching for this project. Sarah, Natasha and I have a major amount of reading to do. In particular, we need to educate ourselves on the ins and outs of how Ad Word works. All those "algorithms" (that's quite scary - we all agreed we are definitely Humanties - strong, and quite suck at Maths). It seems the more you read, the more resources you find. They are all linked to eachother (in true SEO style) and keep on going like a premordial black hole. I stopped at http://adwords.blogspot.com - Although I know these blog posts were written by Google Employees and would be invaluable, I realised there was about 10 years worth of reading available there and it was all too much for my poor brain to handle.

I was browsing About.com and have learnt a little more about the Content Network. Here's what happened when I searched for Health Club:



So, it's all our competition! Brint it ON. Natasha said the winning team in 2008 received negative feedback about not using negative keywords, or capitalising on the Content Network. I don't blame them - its just more work to figure out how to use them! But, we'll be making sure we don't repeat their mistakes. Some ideas came to mind on what *kind* of content we could advertise under:
- Fitness
- Workouts
- Lose Weight
- Postnatal Exercise
etc. etc. etc. Some of it is extremely broad and hence will attract a high CTR, but at the same time we want to be up there stealing our competitions's prospects :) I personally think their ad text is slightly poor, and wasn't written by a Direct Marketing Expert. We can do better. Maybe "March Madness" by Fitness First.. meh, yeah, Special Offer, Call To Action. But they are a mass produced, service-lacking giant and the only thing going for them is the multiple locations and lines of fancy exercise machines. They do not have any client retention strategies - just "piss clients off" and "harrass prospects by phone" strategies.

I am feeling more confident by the minute..