Making The Most Of Google AdWords

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If you've thought for five seconds about advertising online, you've no doubt considered Google AdWords.

AdWords is, by far, the largest of the online advertising services. In case you're not familiar with how it works, here is the thumbnail breakdown

• Come up with a list of words and phrases that pertain to your line of business
• Write one or more ads attracting and directing people to your website
• Bid in a closed auction for how much you are willing to pay to have your ads displayed to anyone who searches for one of your terms in Google

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That's the basics of it.

Why do they make it seem so complex?

Naturally it's not entirely as simple as I've outlined above.

For instance, there is a bit of alchemy involved in selecting good search terms. Pick one that's too broad and there's too much competition; bidding can get expensive. On the other hand, if you pick too narrowly no one may ever search for your terms; meaning no one will see your ads.

It also takes a great deal of skill and experimentation to write an ad that people will respond to. (More on Google's ad structure in a moment.)

How much does it cost?

Theoretically, there is no minimum bid for ads on Google. Of course they will "suggest" a bid amount and even warn you if you bid a lower amount, but none of that is binding on you. The only consequence of low balling your bids is that fewer people may see your ads.

The cost per impression rate ranges from a low of $0.01 per thousand views to as high as you are willing to pay. As a rule, it rarely goes above $1.00 per thousand.

Additionally, you can set a cap on the grand total amount you are willing to pay each month or even the total for each campaign within your overall advertising account.

Google accepts no responsibility for whether or not your ads actually work. They get paid simply for presenting them. It's up to you to make them effective.

Targeting your ads

One way to ensure that your ad is only seen by likely prospects is through targeting. In addition to only showing your ad to people who are searching for terms pertaining to your line of business, you can further refine it so that only prospects within geographic areas you define get to see your ads.

So if you're an attorney, you might opt to only show your ads to people within a 20 mile radius of your office. After all, someone from Bangladesh finding your ad will do no good to either of you. Or perhaps your office is near the border between two states and you are licensed to practice in one but not the other. You can limit your ads to only be shown where you are licensed to do business.

The format of AdWords ads

The ads we are talking about are the text only ads which appear at the top and to the side of the search results pages in Google.

They may also appear in other places, including on mobile phones and some of Google's partner advertising networks. This is controlled by the options you select in your AdWords account.

Aside from the text only ads we're talking about, AdWords also offers graphical ads. These are the banners, squares, leader boards and other block ads seen on all manner of web pages. For now, let's just stick with the basic text ads. The general principles for how to create and manage your AdWords account are similar for both.

The format for these text ads is somewhat rigid.

• A headline is required and you are limited to 25 characters in your headline. The headline itself will be displayed as a clickable hyperlink leading back to a page on your web site. (We'll set exactly where in a moment.)


• Next is a URL to be displayed in your ad. This URL is limited to 35 characters. It does NOT need to be the same as where prospects are directed when they click on your ad. (This appears as the second line in your ad but is the fourth line in the ad building interface.)


• Then you get two lines of text, limited to 35 characters on each line. (These are the third and fourth lines of your ad even though they're the second and third lines in the ad building interface.)


• Finally there is a destination URL. This is not displayed in your ad but is where users who click on your ad will be directed. The destination URL is limited to around 1,200 characters. Few, if any, advertisers will ever generate such long URLs.

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The strict character limit (spaces and punctuation count as characters) requires your ads to be very concise. Making an effective ad may take time and experimentation.

Why two URLs? Google requires you to be up-front about where, in general, users will be directed if they were to click on your ad. Most advertisers just list the main page of their web site and this is perfectly fine. Some users will opt to type in your URL rather than click on your ad.

The more specific URL that is not seen is where users who click on your ad will be directed and is the key to effectively managing your ad campaigns. You can direct users to a very specific page that you set up. You can even have a different page for each ad.

Managing your ad campaigns

Google's AdWords interface provides a myriad of reporting services to tell you how your ads are doing. This makes it easy to test different ads against one another and learn what is most effective for your business.

You can have many different ad campaigns and many ads within a given campaign. You can also pause and restart either individual ads or whole campaigns in real-time.

You can even do research to estimate the relative popularity of keywords and search terms you are considering. This can give you an idea of how much competition you will face when bidding on a given term.

Long-tailed phrases

Think about how you do your own online searching. Rarely will you just search for a single word. More often you will put in phrases, combinations of words or even complete sentences.

When putting together the list of search terms associated with your ads, Google lets you do the same thing.

So if you're a plumber, instead of just bidding on "plumbing" (which would be far too broad and have far too much competition) you could bid on "clogged pipes Delaware" or "bathroom leak Newark Delaware". These are called long-tailed search terms.

Come up with as many combinations of these highly specific search terms as you like. You only pay when your ad is actually shown to someone and your ad will only be shown to someone if they do a search on one of your predefined search terms. By approaching it this way, the people who see your ads will have pre-qualified themselves by essentially saying, "I am searching for exactly what it is that you are selling."

It's the holy grail of advertising effectiveness.

Jeff Kontur is a freelance copywriter and marketer specializing in helping small businesses promote themselves effectively online. Electronic and eReader copies of his book "Fat-Free Marketing" are available for FREE from his web site http://www.FatFreeMarketingGroup.com.

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