Find what you need fast in the new AdWords Help Center

Today we are happy to announce the launch of our new AdWords Help Center for opted in U.S. users. Based on your feedback we redesigned the Help Center to make it much easier for you to find the information for which you're searching.

Here are some of the changes we've made:

1. Simplified navigation: More easily navigate to the right content using the new menu at the top of each page.

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2. Visible contact options: Find options to reach Google with a click on the "Contact us" button in the top right of any page.

3. More screenshots and videos: Use the screenshots and videos in many of the articles to quickly learn how to make the most of Google AdWords.

To opt into the new Help Center, select �Try the new look� from the yellow bar at the top of the page.

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You can also opt out at any time by selecting �Go back to the old look� in the bottom right corner.

We're rolling the changes out gradually, starting with about 60 of the most important topics. Stay tuned for more updates, as well as the global roll out, over the new few quarters.

Do you like the new Help Center? We'd like to hear what you think. Once you've opted-in to the new Help Center, just click the "Send Feedback" link in the lower right corner of any Help Center page.

You can also follow a thread in the Forum if you have something to share with the users in the AdWords Community.

Posted by The AdWords Help Center Team

Join other AdWords users as they share their tips on the Help Forum

Are you a part of the Google AdWords Help Forum community yet? If not, you�re missing out! It�s a great place to get help and advice from AdWords experts, Top Contributors, and Google employees.

Recently, we held a "Share Your Best Practices Week" from March 28, 2011, to April 1, 2011, to encourage users to exchange AdWords tips and learnings that have worked well for them. Over five days, we chose five different topics on which we gathered expert knowledge from our users:

• Tips and best practices on optimizing AdWords ad text
• Tips on how to build an effective keyword list
• How to deal with keywords that are "rarely shown due to low quality score"
• Display ad optimization tips
• Best practices for choosing managed placements

We were excited to see the level of enthusiasm from around the world. A good number of AdWords experts provided great contributions, and some spent a considerable amount of time sharing their tips via detailed posts!

We�ve selected the best of the best practices, and we're proud to share the results with all of you.

So hearty congratulations to Calin, Dave, Katie, Kim, and Shweta for their excellent contributions and knowledge of AdWords! Here are some excerpts from what they shared:

• �If the keyword is really important, a special landing page gets built. Importance = potential for good ROI, and a high search volume.� (Calin)
• �Use AdWords and keyword data in Google Analytics to 'weighted sort' your keywords to find the top performing keywords.� (Dave)
• �I always find I get the highest CTR when the ad text is highly focused on the keywords in question.� (Katie)
• �If you identify a site that has major potential, evaluate the site of interest and you may find yourself creating image ads specific to certain placements.� (Kim)
• "Set up Conversion Tracking before you set the campaign live.� (Shweta)

Does this make you compelled to learn more about ad text optimization, keyword lists, keyword statuses, the Display Network, and managed placements? If the answer is yes, your time would be well spent on the AdWords Help Forum!

By the way, we're planning another event for May 2011, so if you want a chance to showcase your AdWords expertise, stay tuned!

Posted by Lisa Shieh, Inside AdWords crew

Introducing the AdWords Small Business Corner, a new forum discussion category for SMBs

We�ve heard from many of you that you�d like to be able to easily share tips for developing a successful AdWords strategy with others like you. To help you do that, we�ve created a new category in the AdWords Help Forum: the�Small Business Corner. The Small Business Corner is designed to give those of you who are running your own AdWords accounts the opportunity to share best practices in discussions with your peers so that you can make sure your AdWords account is doing all it can to support your business goals.

This new category is not about troubleshooting specific account issues, but rather about sharing and learning from the experiences of others. To give you a preview of the kinds of topics that we hope to discuss, here are a few conversation starters that we had in mind:

• Choosing the right tools to measure results
• How to write great ads
• Finding the right frequency to sign in to AdWords

Of course, this category is about your interests and needs, so we hope you�ll suggest the small business-related topics that you�d like to cover. For any other topics, please consider the other existing forum categories available to you.

Getting started

To join the conversation now, just�visit the Small Business Corner. If you�re new to the AdWords Help Forum, you may want to�create a Google Profile�(while signed in to your AdWords account), introducing yourself and your business before jumping in. In the meantime, you can�check out the introductory discussion thread here.

Posted by Miles Johnson, Inside AdWords crew