Tangled Web

Why not ask a Google Engineer?

First, we should start with a little information on what exactly Google Adwords is. Other search engines offer similar services, but we will focus on Google as it is one of the most popular search engines. What Google and other search engines offer is referred to as Pay-Per-Click advertising. When you search for something on a search engine, you have probably noticed the related advertisements at the top and to the right of your search results. Those advertisements are the result of companies who use Adwords.

You can open up a free account with Google and the next step is to create an advertisement and choose some keywords and phrases that are associated with your business and website. These phrases have a certain price associated with them and you pay that price each time someone clicks on your advertisement, hence, pay-per-click advertising. The more you pay per click the higher up on the list you will appear. This leads to my first point…

Spend $ to Make $ Chances are it is going to cost a bit of cash in the beginning until you decide on the keywords that work the best. It is easy to come up with a few keywords and bid low in an effort to save some money. Unfortunately, you will not likely see any results from this attempt. With Adwords, it is unlikely to see any results if you are not listed on the front page of search results. Rarely do people navigate past the first page of responses of their search and if they do they are not likely to be the type of traffic you want to your site.

If a keyword is out of your price range to begin with then it is too competitive of a keyword to bother with. Go back to the drawing board and think of something new.

Location With Google Adwords you can set up your account so that when people in your geographical area search for one of your keywords your advertisement will come up. This is a great option for small shops that are looking to increase website traffic and business.

Reiterate Try starting out by picking many different keywords that are all within your price range that will appear on the front page. With Google Adwords you can even set a certain budget so you do not end up way over budget. The next step is very important. Do nothing…

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Let your first selection of keywords ride out for a couple months. If you get frustrated after just a few weeks and change your keywords you will not be able to really judge your efforts. After a few months get rid of the keywords that are not bringing in any traffic. Try using Google Analytics to evaluate your attempt. Try tweaking some of your keywords to bring in customers that were searching for your customers.

Give it Time It is going to take a while in order to properly utilize Google Adwords. It is important to keep going back to your keywords and tweaking them in order to get better performance out of them. Put the initial investment and effort into your Adwords and in due time you will be seeing a great return on your investment!