January is a fresh start, a time for resolutions, and a time for cleaning up the mess made from the holiday season. The same should apply to your Pay-Per-Click campaigns. Breathe new life into them with fresh keywords, ad text, and competitive research.

Here is a 5 step plan to give your PPC accounts a (much needed) winter makeover:

1. Read Blog Articles For New Keyword Ideas: Read your industry blogs to keep up with the latest buzz words. Reading the latest and greatest articles may help you think of new ways people will be searching for your products. Setting up a Google blog reader to follow blogs from your industry can help make this task much more time efficient.


2. Write At least 10 New Killer Ads: Take 1-2 hours and brainstorm some new ad text. Walk away from your computer, maybe talk to some clients, go to a white board. Break out from your mold of sitting at your computer and writing your ads. Switch it up! Sometimes to be creative you need to break away from the norm.

3. Study The Quality Score of Your Keywords: Check out which keywords in your account need some quality score help. Then separate those keywords out into their own ad groups and write highly specific ad text around them. Note the quality score before the change, then check the quality score in two weeks. Most likely you will see a big improvement.

4. Use SpyFu.com.: Use this tool to see what your competitors are bidding on! It’s not 100% accurate, but it’s a great way to come up with some new keywords and keep an eye on your competition. Simply type in your competitors’ URL to the search function on this site, and a list of your competitors’ paid terms is automatically generated.

5. Social Media: Stay in the loop on Facebook and other sites to see what your target market is saying and how they are talking about your products. This may help you come up with new ad text, and even make some changes to your landing page copy. Keeping your keyword, ad text, and landing pages relevant is an ongoing task. Social media sites can help you stay on the pulse of your ever changing and evolving target market.

I challenge you to make January a month of change! Think outside the box, and make some powerful changes within your accounts that will really impact your bottom line. Also, if you have any success using the 5-step plan please share!