Introduction to Google Adwords
A Beginner’s Guide to Google Adwords
Imagine placing an ad for your business in a magazine; and not just any magazine, but the world’s most popular magazine. Everyone reads that magazine, and if they search for a category relevant to your business, they can see your ad. Must be costly, you’d say, placing an ad on such a popular magazine. Therein lies the beauty. It isn’t!
Okay, we’re probably not making much sense right now, but we will shortly. The world’s most popular magazine that we’re talking about happens to be Google. Yep, with 12 billion search inquiries every month in USA alone, Google is the definitive global directory. Placing your ad here would be a pretty good idea, don’t you think?
Imagine placing an ad for your business in a magazine; and not just any magazine, but the world’s most popular magazine. Everyone reads that magazine, and if they search for a category relevant to your business, they can see your ad. Must be costly, you’d say, placing an ad on such a popular magazine. Therein lies the beauty. It isn’t!
Okay, we’re probably not making much sense right now, but we will shortly. The world’s most popular magazine that we’re talking about happens to be Google. Yep, with 12 billion search inquiries every month in USA alone, Google is the definitive global directory. Placing your ad here would be a pretty good idea, don’t you think?
Enter Adwords
Adwords is Google’s prime advertising product. It lets advertisers bring targeted traffic to their ad on the search engine, and consequently to their website. This is done by choosing certain keywords relevant to one’s business. For example, let’s say you have a store selling baseball equipment. If you chose to go with Adwords, you could use keywords like baseball, baseball kit, baseball bat etc. to target potential customers. Every time a visitor searches for the aforementioned keywords on Google, they’ll see your ad on the side. This is all in theory, since there are other factors defining your ad’s visibility which we will talk about later. If they click on your ad, they’ll be redirected to your website and you’ll pay a certain amount to Google, based on your cost-per-click (CPC). It’s that simple.
Creating an Adwords Campaign
Just like any other online marketing campaign, you need to create your own Adwords campaign to get started. Let’s create a dummy campaign for your understanding. First, you access the Adwords website and set up your account. Google will help you every step of the way; so that bit is pretty simple.
Going with the baseball example we cited earlier, here’s an ad for your baseball store:
Adwords is Google’s prime advertising product. It lets advertisers bring targeted traffic to their ad on the search engine, and consequently to their website. This is done by choosing certain keywords relevant to one’s business. For example, let’s say you have a store selling baseball equipment. If you chose to go with Adwords, you could use keywords like baseball, baseball kit, baseball bat etc. to target potential customers. Every time a visitor searches for the aforementioned keywords on Google, they’ll see your ad on the side. This is all in theory, since there are other factors defining your ad’s visibility which we will talk about later. If they click on your ad, they’ll be redirected to your website and you’ll pay a certain amount to Google, based on your cost-per-click (CPC). It’s that simple.
Creating an Adwords Campaign
Just like any other online marketing campaign, you need to create your own Adwords campaign to get started. Let’s create a dummy campaign for your understanding. First, you access the Adwords website and set up your account. Google will help you every step of the way; so that bit is pretty simple.
Going with the baseball example we cited earlier, here’s an ad for your baseball store:
Quality Baseball Equipment
Sporty baseball bats, balls, gloves at cheap rates, online order available. Call now at xxx-xxxxx-xxx
www.baseballstore.com
You can create differently worded ads, which will be rotated by Google on a definable basis, i.e., ad 1 to be shown to 80% of the searches and ad 2 be shown to 20% of the searches. You can log into your account to check which campaign has fared best. Depending on that, you can choose to delete other campaigns or create similar ones.
Operating on a Budget
Adwords is cheap, but it isn’t free.
Before we talk about your Adwords budget, let’s introduce the concept of Pay-per-click (PPC). Many of you have probably heard the term already. PPC is an online term which means that as an advertiser, you’ll pay every time someone clicks on your ad. It’s a very cost-effective form of advertising. Your ad could be displayed 10 times, 100 times or a 1000 times; but you’ll only pay when someone actually clicks on your ad.
Once you’ve created a suitable Adwords campaign, it’s time to decide your budget. Let’s say you’ve decided to spend $10 a day for your Adwords campaign. Google will keep displaying your ad until your budget has finished, that is to say, until a sufficient number of people have clicked on your ad. This means you have two options:
And, what makes for ‘a sufficient number of people’, you ask? That is explained next.
Sporty baseball bats, balls, gloves at cheap rates, online order available. Call now at xxx-xxxxx-xxx
www.baseballstore.com
You can create differently worded ads, which will be rotated by Google on a definable basis, i.e., ad 1 to be shown to 80% of the searches and ad 2 be shown to 20% of the searches. You can log into your account to check which campaign has fared best. Depending on that, you can choose to delete other campaigns or create similar ones.
Operating on a Budget
Adwords is cheap, but it isn’t free.
Before we talk about your Adwords budget, let’s introduce the concept of Pay-per-click (PPC). Many of you have probably heard the term already. PPC is an online term which means that as an advertiser, you’ll pay every time someone clicks on your ad. It’s a very cost-effective form of advertising. Your ad could be displayed 10 times, 100 times or a 1000 times; but you’ll only pay when someone actually clicks on your ad.
Once you’ve created a suitable Adwords campaign, it’s time to decide your budget. Let’s say you’ve decided to spend $10 a day for your Adwords campaign. Google will keep displaying your ad until your budget has finished, that is to say, until a sufficient number of people have clicked on your ad. This means you have two options:
- Displaying your ad evenly throughout the day until the daily budget is exhausted.
- To use the daily budget as fast as possible by concentrating on particular time periods during the day.
And, what makes for ‘a sufficient number of people’, you ask? That is explained next.
The Bid
While setting your Adwords budget, you’ll be asked to make a ‘bid’, that is, how much you’re willing to spend for every visitor that clicks on your link. Let’s say you settle at 25 cents for every visitor that clicks on your ad. Keeping your $10-a-day budget in mind, your ad will keep running until 40 people have clicked on your ad in a day. When that happens, Google will suspend your ad so that you don’t overspend for the given day. That’s the best part about Adwords in our opinion: you only spend the amount you’re willing to shell out.
Then again, it isn’t called the ‘bid’ for no reason. There are many other advertisers who, like you, are operating in the same field and vying for the search engine traffic’s attention. Let’s say there’s another baseball store down the road which is also using Adwords. Their bid is set at 30 cents for every visitor who clicks on their ad. By outbidding you, they have ensured a spot above you when someone searches for the relevant keywords. If you want a higher spot, simply bid for more than 30 cents per visitor.
You can change your payment settings and bidding amount at any time.
The Buck Does Not Stop Here
These are just the basics, mind you. Let’s give you a little teaser of the other features you can play with. For instance, you can change your language settings to display your ad in different languages. You can also specify where you want your ad to be displayed by adjusting location settings. But the most important tool that Google offers you is the Keyword Planner, earlier known as the Keyword Tool. Using this, you can find out the most popular keywords that are relevant to your products and services. The Keyword Planner combines the functionality of the Keyword Tool with a resource for estimating website traffic, making it a much more versatile asset.
Let’s say you wanted to search for popular keywords on ‘basketball’, you might find terms like basketball shoes, basketball shorts, basketball jerseys, slam dunk etc. You can also find out how popular each keyword is and how much it would cost to advertise on them.
Getting the picture now? Once you’ve had a hang of the basics, you’ll be creating Adwords campaigns like a pro. It’s all about taking those first nervous steps and not looking back.
While setting your Adwords budget, you’ll be asked to make a ‘bid’, that is, how much you’re willing to spend for every visitor that clicks on your link. Let’s say you settle at 25 cents for every visitor that clicks on your ad. Keeping your $10-a-day budget in mind, your ad will keep running until 40 people have clicked on your ad in a day. When that happens, Google will suspend your ad so that you don’t overspend for the given day. That’s the best part about Adwords in our opinion: you only spend the amount you’re willing to shell out.
Then again, it isn’t called the ‘bid’ for no reason. There are many other advertisers who, like you, are operating in the same field and vying for the search engine traffic’s attention. Let’s say there’s another baseball store down the road which is also using Adwords. Their bid is set at 30 cents for every visitor who clicks on their ad. By outbidding you, they have ensured a spot above you when someone searches for the relevant keywords. If you want a higher spot, simply bid for more than 30 cents per visitor.
You can change your payment settings and bidding amount at any time.
The Buck Does Not Stop Here
These are just the basics, mind you. Let’s give you a little teaser of the other features you can play with. For instance, you can change your language settings to display your ad in different languages. You can also specify where you want your ad to be displayed by adjusting location settings. But the most important tool that Google offers you is the Keyword Planner, earlier known as the Keyword Tool. Using this, you can find out the most popular keywords that are relevant to your products and services. The Keyword Planner combines the functionality of the Keyword Tool with a resource for estimating website traffic, making it a much more versatile asset.
Let’s say you wanted to search for popular keywords on ‘basketball’, you might find terms like basketball shoes, basketball shorts, basketball jerseys, slam dunk etc. You can also find out how popular each keyword is and how much it would cost to advertise on them.
Getting the picture now? Once you’ve had a hang of the basics, you’ll be creating Adwords campaigns like a pro. It’s all about taking those first nervous steps and not looking back.