Help with adwords

We have run our first ppc campaign on adwords. We ran a bunch of phrases under broad matching for our targeted keywords within a large geograhphical area around our regional technical school. We also used two phrases that don't have our keywords but relate to activities that our students enjoy and often serve as an impetus to have them go to our school.

The click through rates for the better versions of our keyword phrases were above 10%. The ctr for the unconnected phrases were incredibly low.

We generally rank 1 or 2 or 1-4 for regional versions of our keywords. In some cases we are ranked anywhere from 2-6 for regional phrases using variations on our keywords.

We did this test to see how we might do with phrases that are of interest to our students but don't directly tie in to our school. We did not create a great ad that might better attract students but did one on the fly.

I've communicated with g adwords support to improve the campaign. There suggestions revolve around more phrases that emphasize our keywords. I don't really see the purpose of this as we are so highly ranked for virtually all relevant regional keyword phrases. They suggest we demphasize the effort to "stretch our marketing". They also suggest running this campaign nationally.

I'm aware that conversions off of searches for all SE's are roughly 80% from regional variations on our keywords and only 20% for national phrases. Currently we rank #6 in g for the most important keyword phrase, #1 in Y and MSN.

I think I need to read the book(s) suggested by EGOL but remain interested in expanding our marketing into an area that we know from long experience is related to people who sign up for our hands on training (which is b a **** r t e n d i n g).

Anybody have experience in these areas?

Dave

We found that general keywords generated alot of clicks and money with no a good conversion rate, people just looking generally, but using specific keywords or phrases was much beeter and it targeted people who were actually interested in what we sell.
Have you used a keyword suggestion tool, this shows what people are actually putting into search engines, here is a link to the UK version of one, you may need to go counrty/area specific.
http://inventory.uk.overture.com/d/...ory/suggestion/ or use the Google one!
Hope its helpful

Phrases need to be targeted. If not your ROI for them will be poor or non-existent. Poor phrases should be deleted from your account.