Google operates an advertising program called AdWords. This program enables people who have a website or a product to sell to place adverts among the organic search results on the Google SERPS (search engine results pages). These adverts appear above and to the right of the organic listings. They have been around for some time now and have transformed advertising on the internet.
The AdWords system might seem to be very simple, but the complete opposite is actually true. It is a very complicated program which, if used correctly, can generate a lot of profitable traffic in a very short space of time and over the long-term.
The cost of advertising on Google varies greatly and depends upon the targeted keywords/keyword phrases, the frequency the adverts appear and the frequency the adverts are clicked. Some of the most competitive keywords can cost several, to tens of dollars, per click, other, less competitive keywords, can cost just a few cents each.
Signing up for a Google AdWords account is free, and all members have full access to all of the tools and features built into AdWords. This allows you to try things out before you spend any money. It also allows you to test the water to see if you could manage your AdWords campaigns yourself, or should you outsource it to somebody who knows the system inside out.
Some of the tools and features are as follows:
Keyword Research Tool
Allows you to research the phrases you should be targeting for your business. It shows how often phrases are searched for, how much competition there is for those phrases and how much you are likely to pay per click. All of the figures given are estimates, but they are invaluable for all AdWords users. You can also tailor the results you see to the region/country you want to target and the language you would like to use.
Daily Budget
You can set up a daily budget for each of your campaigns, this ensures you never run up an unexpectedly high bill. Once the limit you specify has been reached, the adverts associated with that campaign will not appear until the following day.
Run Multiple Campaigns
You can set up a whole range of campaigns. Ideal for websites that offer a range of products or services. Each campaign can be further divided into groups of adverts to target specific keywords/keyword phrases, each of these groups can have multiple adverts on rotation so you can see which adverts work best.
Conversion Tracking
A nice little feature that allows you to track how successful your AdWords campaigns are. The results from monitoring your conversion rates help you make informed decisions about your adverts. Conversions can differ for each campaign – it could be a sale or just an action such as signing up for a newsletter or filling out a form.
Target Your Locality
For some advertisers it is appropriate to display adverts to a worldwide audience, for others, it is not. If your business targets a specific geographic location, it is possible to target your adverts just to people from that area (town, city, county).
Switch Adverts On or Off
All adverts and campaigns can be paused at any time. Once paused, they can be re-activated at any time. Paused adverts will stay in your account for as long as you want them to.
Create an Ad Schedule
You can further refine your campaign by specifying which days of the weeks and hours of the day you would like to have your adverts active.
As you can see there is a lot of tweaking to be done to ensure an AdWords campaign runs effectively. Many people have tried to run their own AdWords campaigns and have quickly found themselves overawed by all of the various options available to them. This often leads to a campaign being created which creates a poor ROI (return on investment) and costs a lot of money. Other people are quite happy to outsource AdWords campaigns to experts in the field. The fees for running AdWords campaigns vary greatly, but usually consist of a set up fee and percentage of the advertisers’ monthly spend.
The question is, which option is best for you? Do it yourself or go down the outsource route? The answer will depend upon a number of things; your skill level, how important your time is to your business, how big your AdWords campaign needs to be, your budget, and your desire to learn something as complicated as AdWords. But the good news is that you can try the AdWords system for free. You can do some keywords research, set up some campaigns and do everything else apart from publish your ads. This will give you a good feel for the system before you make a final decision about which option is best for you.
