Adwords: What is it? (in simple terms!)

Posted on July 7, 2009 by Carol

Adwords is an internet advertising method which drives highly targeted visitors straight to your website by using a ‘pay per click’ system.  You start by creating a campaign which includes at least one advert, a set of keywords and a maximum bid (which can vary from keyword to keyword).  Once your campaign is active, your advert will appear every time someone searches on Google for one of your keywords.  The higher your bid, the higher your advert will appear in the search results.  You pay your bid cost every time someone clicks on your advert (hence the term “pay per click”).  If no-one clicks, you don’t pay a penny.

So what’s the difference between pay-per-click (PPC) systems and search engine optimisation (SEO)?  SEO is a long-term ongoing project that involves making sure your website pages are optimised for your keywords and that you have a wide selection of good quality websites linking to your website.  Depending on your sector, there could be MILLIONS of other websites all fighting for the top spot and it can take months or even years to achieve good natural search engine placement.   PPC, on the other hand, can get you to the very top of the first page of search engine results in an instant, as long as you’re happy to pay the highest bid cost.

A well researched and executed campaign can reap massive rewards for your business.  For example, if you have a bid cost of £1 per click and a budget of £100 per month, you will be guaranteed to receive at least 100 targeted clicks through to your website.  If you turn 10% of those clicks into sales and your average sale is £40, your £100 Adwords spend will have generated £4000 worth of sales.

However, failure to research and manage your campaign can turn your Adwords campaign into a financial disaster!  Thankfully Google offers some tools to make your life easier, such as Keyword Research tool.  Use this tool to check that the keywords you’ve already thought of are effective keywords to target and get ideas of different keywords to try.  If you’re in a competitive niche, you might find that some keywords are too expensive for your budget – if that’s the case, the keyword tool will help you find alternatives.  Make use also of negative keywords – these are words that you don’t want your advert to appear for.  For example, if you offer premium priced products, you could use negative keywords such as “free”, “cheap” or “bargain”.  Negative keywords are added to your list with a hyphen in front, e.g. -cheap.

Once you have your keyword list, you need to make sure your advert – or adverts – are perfect.  If you offer more than one service or product, it makes sense to have a unique advert group for each.  That way, you can make sure your adverts are perfectly tailored to the user’s search and, after clicking on your advert, the user will be taken through to exactly the right page on your website.  Avoid linking your advert through to your website homepage; you’ll get better results if you link to an internal page that contains the product or service your advert refers to.  It can be helpful to quote a price on your advert in order to discourage users from clicking whose desire to purchase would be negatively affected by your price.

One of the often overlooked parts of your PPC campaign is your landing page – i.e. the page users arrive on after clicking on your advert.  If you find that you’re getting plenty of clicks, but nowhere near enough sales, take that as a sign to improve your landing page.  Make sure you have a “call to action”on your page – whether it’s to purchase a product, sign up to a newsletter or book a sales consultation – and make it as tempting and straightforward as possible for the user to complete.

Finally, keep testing your campaign!  Google Adwords doesn’t limit you to the number of keyword variations and advert variations you can have, so keep trying new ideas until you find the perfect fit.  Regularly check the phrases that are being used by users clicking through to your website, so you can add in more negative keywords if necessary.

Always keep a close eye on your return on investment – if the cost of your adwords campaign is higher than the income from the sales it’s generated, it’s time to refine your campaign (check your keywords, bids and landing page)!

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  Carol Beck is an internet consultant and web developer; offering a range of website services and online training.  View the original article in context at http://www.ethictech.co.uk