Any advertiser knows that before you can sell anything, you must first define and then reach your target audience. When it comes to Google AdWords, reaching your target audience is all about choosing the right keywords to display in the advertisements you create. Increasing traffic to your web site is pointless if the people that visit your site are not the type of people who will buy your product or use your services. With that in mind, here are some tips for choosing effective keywords.

Know your Target Audience

The first and most important step of any advertising campaign is knowing who you're trying to reach. What is your target audience searching for, and what search terms are they using?

Match Keywords to your Audience

Once you've defined your target audience, the next step is brainstorming a list of keywords that relate to the service or product you're selling. The key is being specific with your keyword choices?remember that your aim is to optimize traffic, not maximize it. Choosing general keywords is pointless, because you'll end up paying for clicks from people who are not actually interested in buying your products. Optimizing traffic means targeting people who will not only click on your ad, but will also buy what you're selling.

Let's say, for example, you operate an online business that sells fancy-dress costumes. Choosing the keyword ?clothes? might generate a lot of traffic to your site?from people looking for clothing for everyday wear. They won't be buying your costumes, but you're paying every time they click on your advertisement. Create a highly-specific advertisement that includes keywords such as ?costumes? and include more specific words depending on the time of year?such as ?Halloween? for example, and you'll be more likely to generate clicks from people who want your products.

Keep it Short and Simple

Google AdWords allows you to choose an unlimited number of keywords to match your advertisements to, but less is always more. Choosing too many keywords can be just as injurious to your advertising campaign as choosing keywords which are too general. Keep your initial campaign to between ten and twenty keywords for maximum benefit.

Along the same lines, you should be thinking simplicity when it comes to writing your ad copy. You only have a couple of lines of text to work with, so every word counts. Your advertisement text should be designed to pique the interest of your target audience?you can't tell them everything about your products in one or two short lines, so you must make them want to find out more by visiting your site.

Experiment with Keywords

Google provides you with a number of tools to determine how effective your chosen keywords are. You should be monitoring your keywords regularly to determine which ones are working best at generating the web site traffic you want, so you can eliminate the ones that aren't generating clicks.

Among the tools you can use is the Google Keyword tool. This is particularly useful if you're not sure which keywords will generate the traffic you want. The keyword tool allows you to enter words you choose then find more words that are related to the ones you entered. You can then go ahead and choose the keywords that are good matches to your advertisement, and add them to your keyword list with a single click.