The Complete Guide to Google AdWords

There are numerous online marketing techniques that you can employ to direct people to your website or create awareness of your brand, and Google AdWords is a good avenue to pursue. But what exactly is Google AdWords?

Google AdWords is an advertising service that allows business owners to display their clickable ads in Google’s search results and its entire advertising network. This is how Google makes money since you have to pay for the clicks.

How Google AdWords Works

This service hugely relies on keywords. This means that the first step towards using Google AdWords is choosing the right keywords, although this choice is usually subject to a bidding process. Once you have the keywords, you then have to bid with other marketers for the position of your ads in search results. The more you pay for each click, the higher the chances of your ad appearing in more relevant search results. This also secures it a top spot amongst other ads. However, if someone else pays higher than what you had initially paid for your clicks, Google then relegates your ad. It is paramount to note that the position of you add is not just determined by the cost per click alone. Its quality score also plays a key role.

Unlike organic results, AdWords can be controlled quite easily. Furthermore, Google tends to reward advertisers whose ads are well-targeted and highly relevant with discounted per-click costs. If your ad has also been performing quite well, you can easily be rewarded with a top spot which guarantees more visits to your website.

Who Can Use AdWords?

Looking at how Google AdWords works tells you that this advertising system can be very effective in landing the right traffic to your website. In fact, if you manage to get the right keyword and a top spot, you can get very high conversion rates. Does that mean that any business can use Google AdWords? That is a resounding yes. Regardless of the business that you are running, you can always turn to Google AdWords.

Google AdWords is simply like many other advertising options available for different websites and businesses. As long as it is implemented correctly, it will always help you bring in more clients. However, given that cost-per-click changes all the time due to the bidding process, small businesses that are just starting up may find it a little difficult to sustain this service for a long time.

Benefits of using Google AdWords

Every gain comes with a substantial payment as investment. This means that although Google AdWords may continuously cost you money, it is an effective way of generating more revenue for the business. Some of the benefits of using Google AdWords include:
High ROI
Google AdWords allow you to bring targeted traffic to your website. Since these ads are displayed with a small description of what you are offering, the traffic that you get is more or less of people are who are really interested in your products and services. This leads to more sales and a lot of gains compared to what you paid for the clicks.

Trackable Success

When using AdWords, it is very easy to track your success. You can use Google Analytics to generate reports that will show just how effective the campaign is. This ability to track success means that you can easily switch to new keywords if the ones you are using for targeting are not working as anticipated.

Small Initial Investment

You do not need to have a lot of cash to invest in Google AdWords. Once you open an AdWords account, you can deposit whatever amount you are comfortable with to be used for bidding. This deposit is only billed after a click meaning that if you chose to stop using the service, you can still recover what is left of your initial investment.

Highly Targeted

The ability to use to target your audience by choosing the right keywords and even location is one of the greatest benefits of Google AdWords. It allows you to fine-tune your marketing campaign to the specific few thus making it very effective. Mobile, location, language, and time targeting are all possible courtesy of AdWords.

Choosing the Right Keywords

These are some of the key benefits that you can reap by using Google AdWords but unfortunately, this is only plausible if you have the right keywords. Since this is keyword based advertising, you must get those keywords that are relevant to what you do. Ask yourself if people will be able to reach you by using those keywords and if you are not convinced, try something else.

You can also try searching for your preferred keywords on different search engines to get an idea of how your competition is doing and how they respond with different long tails. If it is a high-value keyword, then you may have a number of adverts on top meaning that its cost-per-click may be a little high.

After your search, you can buy a sample campaign for the keywords and see how it fairs after a few click. This testing phase is important to ensure that you do not waste a lot of time with keywords that do not seem to be working optimally for you. You can also use that data obtained from Analytics to actually determine the right keywords to use based on impressions and conversion rates.

Common Keyword Mistakes to Steer Clear Off

Although coming up with converting keywords is a little challenging, you have to stay clear of a number of mistakes that will prevent you from getting the most from a Google AdWords campaign.

Broad Keywords

Start by avoiding broad keywords. Such keywords only list you like everyone else in search results and thus are very inefficient in targeting. Instead, use groups of between 5 to 0 long-tail keywords that best describe what you are offering.

Using too Many Keywords in an Ad

When you put too many keywords in an ad, they look become spammy. It is also easy for the advert to lose meaning. Although each keyword should take the user to a particular landing page, this is at times not possible but nevertheless, stick to ad groups that have less than ten keywords each.

Sending All Visitors to the Homepage

When people click on your ads, they expect to go a webpage where they will find crucial information about the products and services that they are looking for. If you keep referring all of them to the homepage, you are likely to lose out on their business since most of them will not have time to navigate to other pages.

You also need to avoid common mistakes such as incorrect grouping of your keywords, failing to use negative keywords, not bidding on your particular brand and most importantly, expecting too much too soon from Google AdWords.

Optimising Your Landing Page for Conversions

Now that you have chosen the right keyword and targeted them well, your website needs to be ready to receive traffic. Your landing page determines whether you will be able to make a sale or not and as such it must be designed to capture your visitors’ attention while also providing them with what they are looking for. To ensure that it makes this possible, include:

A unique selling point preferably as a headline
An appealing image, video or infographic
A solid call to action
Benefits list for your products or services
A social endorsement is possible

Google AdWords is an effective advertising option that will help you direct the visitors that you want to your website and keep away those that will probably not make any purchase. By looking at this guide, you will be able to understand what it really entails and how to make it work for you.