A Beginner’s Guide to Google AdWords
Wednesday, September 27th, 2006This guide has been written to help you get started in Google Adwords and save you time and effort on initial research.
You may already be familiar with the ins and outs of Google search results. However, just in case you aren’t familiar where ads appear, Google’s paid ads appear separately in the search results on the right hand side of the screen and in some instances at the top of the screen. For example let’s use one of the most competitive terms for paid ads, “search engine optimization”. As you can see below, the #1 ad pays the most for your click and #2 second most and so on to the last paid ad paying the least.
Google AdWords can provide an inexpensive advertising venue for you to increase your leads. However, you need to do your research to ensure you achieve a positive ROI – Return on Investment. There are some simple guidelines to follow to save you landing in some pitfalls and wasting a lot of money.
Benefits to AdWords
As mentioned earlier in brief, advertisers bid on keywords, the more an advertiser is willing to pay the higher the likelihood the ad will appear higher in position in the list of ads served. Google, invariably wanting to make the most from advertisers, determines placement based on a combination of click through rate, bid amount and budget. Of course, in order to maximize revenue and please searchers Google does have editorial-guidelines for ads served and all ads must receive a minimum percentage click through or they are removed.
AdWords Guidelines
Clearly and accurately describe the website; this is to the advertiser and searchers benefit. Ultimately, the more qualified the visitor who clicks the ad, the higher the likelihood the clicker will convert into a lead. By providing clear and accurate information, searchers who click the ad are qualified leads, which tend to convert more consistently than unqualified leads. The most effective advertising communicates a clear message to a targeted audience. Avoid excessive capitalization, superlatives and lavish exclamation marks in the ad. By doing this you are not only serving the visitor you are filtering unwanted clicks from non-buyers. Due to space limitations your ad message will need to be concise. Select keywords that are relevant to your product, service or content. Call to action phrases are not allowed (i.e. you cannot use phrases like “click here” in your ad copy.) There are also no pop-ups.
Google AdWords Getting Started – The Basics
- Visit Google AdWords - and read all the information about getting started http://www.google.com/ads/
- Open an account – Keep a record of your log in and password.
- Target language and country - This is very important because if your product or service is not International you will waste money when your Ad shows up in other countries and is clicked on.
- Create your Ad Groups.
- Establish your search terms – Use the free tools such as Yahoo keyword search suggestion tool to find search terms or keywords which are being searched on http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/rc/srch/. WordTracker offers a one day free trial and is another valuable tool for keyword research. Use keyword variations to reach more prospects. A variety or spellings and derivatives of keywords will increase the chances of your ads being served. Be sure to use common misspellings and plurals in your keyword list. Another good place to target your ads is through competitor key terms, for example ‘company name’.
Avoid: Highly competitive and expensive terms. For example if you are in the web design business you would avoid ‘web design’, ‘website design’ until you are more experienced and complete your testing phase. Ensure the learning curve runs out before the budget does. - Less is more – Here is a basic ad targeting potential prospects for a home based business. You’ll want to keep it short to stand out from the crowd in order to increase the ad’s click through rate.
Improve Your Life Forever – Title Tag (25 characters max) Attention Grabber
Business minded? – Ad content line 1 (35 characters max) Description
Serious about starting one? - Ad content line 2 (35 characters max) Call to Action
TheJourneyBeginsNow.com – Landing page URL (35 characters max) - Define max click - Google will suggest a cost per click, but the recommendation does not need to be adhered to. Arguments have been heard that #1 position does not always mean increased sales; sometimes a second position will filter useless clicks and provide targeted traffic with a higher conversion ration. The rule of thumb is positions 1-3 garner the most traffic and best results. Increasing either your maximum cost-per-click or the ads click through rate will generally improve the ad’s position.
- Broad match - This is the default option. Broad match is targeting keywords in a loosely defined manner. Ads appear based on keywords that have been queried by search users. For instance, if the keywords you are planning on broad matching are “mountain bikes” and users search for the terms “bikes that can climb a mountain”, your ad will appear; as opposed to exact match, which requires that the keywords selections must exactly match the query.
- Phrase match - is indicated when quotations are used in the phrase. A keyword phrase set to phrase match will only appear when the exact phrase is searched on. For example “mountain bikes” will appear when searchers search for “brand name mountain bikes”, but would not appear for “brand name mountain racing bikes”.
- Exact match - is when the keyword or phrase is entered with brackets. The phrase will only serve ads when the entered search phrase is identical to you defined keyword phrase. [Mountain bikes] will only appear when searchers search for “mountain bikes”. This is where you would want to enter common misspellings. Eg. [mountan bikes] would appear for “mountan bikes”.
- Negative keyword - is helpful in filtering unrelated phrases. A dash is entered before the filtering phrase. “Mountain bike -races will not appear if mountain bike races are searched on. Tip – make sure you enter negative terms that are irrelevant to your industry. Such as “law” or if you are using broad match for MLM and you don’t want your ad to appear under “mlm law” exclude “law” here.
- Landing Page - is important because this not only helps with tracking, but also provides a focused and specific landing page for searchers. Information can be related to the actual search, while also increasing the conversion ratios for sales. A focused landing page with content related and using the same terminology as the actual search will show the searcher that your solution is relevant to their needs.
- Define budget - in order to maximize exposure Google recommends a daily budget for each campaign. Google’s suggested budget is helpful in receiving consistent traffic throughout the advertising campaign. Keep in mind this is only Google’s recommendation; ultimately it is up to you to determine a budget that is affordable and suitable.
- Tracking - Google supplies free tracking tools that assist advertisers in determining their return on investment based on keyword searches and phrases. While the technology is not perfect and cannot track phone and purchase orders, it should give advertisers a sense of what phrases and keywords are converting well in their advertising campaign.
- http://www.google.com/analytics/ is a free web analytics tool, set this up from within your Adwords account and your CPC dta will be integrated into the results.
- The other tool specific to adwords is the conversion tracker free with every adwords account. After you have created and setup your adwords account, simply click the conversion tracker link under the campaign management tab or click here https://adwords.google.com/select/convtrackingsignup and sign in to your account. Check the “lead” box and click next. Click continue one more time. The rest of the instructions are self explanatory.
While Google AdWords should not be your only advertising campaign, managed correctly it can be a significant part of your campaign. Google AdWords can certainly help send those important targeted searchers to your website.
Author Bio
Elixir Systems is a full service search engine marketing company specializing in organic search engine optimization services, online public relations management and paid search or PPC management. For more information visit Elixir Systems