Website Builders

What are Adwords?

If you have ever wondered how Google became a billion dollar enterprise by providing a free service - (rapid access to billions of website pages) - the answer is Adwords.

Adwords is the name of Googles pay-per-click advertising system. It serves up text adverts in context with what  webs surfers are searching for on the Internet and is extremely efficient at attracting the right visitors to advertisers websites.

How does Adwords work?

When you carry out a search of the Internet using Google, Google analyses the keywords you typed, searches its advertising database and presents you with a set of relevant adverts on the same page as your search results i.e. adverts in the same context as your search.

Clicking on any advert on a Google page takes you straight to the advertisers website page. So the whole system is designed to detect visitors interested in their products or services and deliver them to the website where they can obtain them.

Who should use Adwords?

Adwords is an especially useful method of advertising if your website doesn't naturally appear within the first few pages of results for your keywords or if there is a lot of competition for the products or services you offer.

Google did not invent contextual Advertising but Google has excelled in it by the introduction of a bidding system in which advertisers compete against one another for the right to have their adverts displayed to Google's' visitors i.e. if you don't bid enough your adverts may never be shown. This means that the more competitive the sector and the keywords used for your advert e.g. mortgage, loans - the more costly it will be to advertise so the cost of advertising is market driven.

Advantages of Pay Per Click Advertising

Adwords is a pay-per-click advertising system. This means you as an advertiser only pay if and when someone clicks on your advert. This is good for you as an advertiser because:

• Unless your advert is actually clicked on by an interested visitor you never have to pay anything for advertising. (Though a small deposit is needed to get started).
• The only people who are granted the opportunity to view your adverts are people who have already demonstrated an interest in the subject - (through the words they use in their searches) - so your adverts are displayed to pre-qualified potential customers only.
• Adwords can be a very cheap way of reaching clients who could never find your website otherwise.

 

Of course, once visitors have arrived at your website, it is up to you to persuade them to make use of your services or persuade them to buy your products with a well written landing page.

Setting up Adwords

Adwords are easy enough to set up as Google leads you step by step through the process. However, you need some extra knowledge to set up your Adwords to avoid losing money. You will also need to monitor how much you spend daily on your Adwords advert campaign and weigh this against any new or extra revenue you are gaining to determine if your campaign is profitable and whether to continue with it or not.

You can download a free but excellent Guide to setting up your Adwords Campaign here (Right Click, then click save target/link - 3.5 MB download)