Step 2. Create a strong headline that will get your ad noticed.

Since your headline must be no longer than 25 characters long, including spaces and punctuation, it takes some work to get it right. Headlines that contain reader-oriented benefits work best.

If you're selling used books, which headline do you think would work better?

A) "1,000 used books in stock"

B) "Used Books Free Shipping"

C) {KeyWord:Used Books}

If you answered "B", you're right. Free Shipping is a user benefit that should draw more clicks.

Anyone searching for used books expects every AdWord that comes up to be about used books, so you're wasting the most important part of your ad if you choose "A".

But, what if you choose "C"? Ah, grasshopper, you have uncovered a little known Google AdWords secret known as...

The Secret of the Dynamic Headline

If a user types in a search term that matches one of your keywords exactly, the search term will appear highlighted in your ad. A highlighted keyword that exactly matches the phrase a search phrase is more likely to draw a click. At least that's the theory.

If one of the phrases in your headline or ad is "pre-owned books", and someone types in that phrase, then "pre-owned books" is going to be highlighted in either your ad or headline. Let's look at our used book ad:

Used Books Free Shipping Find the Used Books you want from over 100,000 titles. www.SomeBookStore.com

Uh oh. The phrase "pre-owned" books doesn't appear anywhere. However, since you were smart enough to have that phrase listed as one of your keywords, the user will still see you ad, there just won't be any highlighting.

Now let's replace the headline with this:

{KeyWord:Used Books Free Shipping}

When the user searches for "pre-owned books", that phrase is going to appear highlighted in your headline even though it isn't really in your headline. Why? Because by entering the magic {KeyWord:Used Books Free Shipping} tag Google will replace the variable KeyWord with the user's search term as long as that search term is listed as one of you keyword phrases. If it's not, then Google will simply display your normal headline. How's that for cool?

Just remember to follow the syntax EXACTLY including the mixed case usage of KeyWord, the colon and the curly braces surrounding everything. The 25 character limitation still applied to the default headline that you enter after the colon, but Google doesn't count the syntax part of the entry.

Now you're ready for step 3.