I had exactly the same problem, I read the hed, then the copy, then had to reread the hed.

I agree that the imperative nature of, e.g., "Don't use negative keywords" is confusing when the item is something you shouldn't do.

Maybe a title like "Are you wasting money with these common Adwords mistakes?" with items like "Neglecting to use negative keywords" would be clearer.

Should definitely rewrite for clarity it's a mess. For example:

"My own experiences with Adwords quickly showed me that people will click an ad, even if it isn’t at all relevant to what they are searching for. For example people searching for “747 seating plan” will click on an ad with the title “wedding seating plan”. It is the nature of the web that people are surfing rather than reading, and clicking on an irrelevant ad doesn’t cost them anything [...] you can be sure that I have “747″ set up as a negative keyword."

He switches voice within the para and there's not much hint he's doing it.

So how should that paragraph have been written?

He's using the supposedly humorous "say the opposite to what you mean" method of blogging. He should just have dropped that right off the bat:

My edit: "My experiences with Adwords shows people don't click an advert unless it's relevant to their search. For example, people searching for '747 seating plan' don't click ads for 'wedding seating plans'. People are not surfing the web, rather they are reading. Clicking an irrelevant ad is rare [...] thus I have '747' set up as a negative keyword."

Where it says "clicking an irrelevant ad is rare" I'd probably say "following an irrelevant ad leads to virtually zero conversion rate". But I tried not to change the meaning with my edit.

FTFY: how did I do?

Edit: re-reading the original I can see now that he may not have been continuing his negative voice. He may have posted this para in the positive. It does work either way. So, is he saying people click irrelevant ads, or is he saying they don't?

For example people searching for "747 seating plan" will click on an ad with the title "wedding seating plan".

By accident, and then fail to convert.

I came here to post the exact comment. If you must use double negatives ("not waste"), then just do it once and be positive for the rest of the article. The title could be "How not to waste money". Then you made your point about how dumb it is to ignore the rules you are about to list, and you don't confuse people with weird negative-ness in the rest of the article.

Or, if you really want to do it right, skip the whole negatives thing. "How to best spend your Adwords money. 1) Use conversion tracking. 2) Use negative keywords..." Clear and helpful!

Yes, but not as eye catching a title. ;0)