Strengthen your advertising strategies with the Train &amp; Gain challenge

[Cross-posted from Inside AdWords]

Today we’re announcing the first AdWords Train & Gain challenge.

You’ve asked us how to improve the performance of your AdWords account, so we’ve put together a series of simple steps to help you become more successful online.

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Sign up for the AdWords Train & Gain challenge starting October 4th. You'll receive a weekly list of simple steps for improving your AdWords account. Sign into your account twice a week and take the suggested actions on how to better manage your account. At the end of four weeks, you’ll be armed with many different ways to improve your AdWords account.

If you complete all the steps and answer a short questionnaire to let us know what you’ve learned, you could win an Android Phone or a trip to meet with an AdWords consultant in Sydney, Australia for you and a colleague.

Here’s a sneak peek of the fast and easy tips you’ll get:

Improve ad text: Stand out from your competition by writing ads that highlight your most competitive features (low price, special services, free delivery, etc).

Use negative keywords: Specify which search terms you don’t want your ad to appear on. This will help you keep costs down because it prevents clicks from people looking for things you don’t offer.

Track sales and leads: See where your ad spend is working best and focus your money on the efforts that are generating business.

This challenge doesn’t take up a lot of time and it can make a big difference for your business. Learn more and see the official rules for details about the challenge, who is eligible to compete and how we’re selecting winners. Terms and conditions can be found here.

Also, if you’d like to learn more about your AdWords account, check out our brand new AdWords Small Business Center, which we announced in last week’s post. The site is a one-stop shop for small and medium businesses. It allows visitors to explore beginner, intermediate or advanced AdWords topics and connects you to the latest AdWords news and best practices.

Posted by Nathania Lozada, Inside AdWords crew