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Using Google AdWords to Promote your Business

The meteoric rise of Fortune 500 companies in the last decade has cast a seemingly insurmountable shadow over the small business owner looking to expand their brand. While this pressure could encourage business owners to look inwardly at their companies and think there is no chance to expand, consider the fact that those larger companies were once smaller!

The small business owner today has a very unique opportunity to expand their brand through a service most people use daily, Google!  Google uses an advertisement feature called “Google AdWords”. Google AdWords is a marketplace where companies pay to have their website ranked right with the top organic search results, based on keywords. The beauty is, you can use AdWords on your own or you can hire a small business like us to assist!

We hope you keep reading to find out much more about the Google AdWords program!

Google AdWords:  What to do before Beginning

  1. Establish a Budget
    • When looking over your company’s expenses and comparing your budgeting line item for advertisements compared to others, consider the fact that the companies you are likely comparing yourself to are well established and thus require greater financial resources to expand their brands. In reality, a beginning business should seek to set a small monthly budget, sometimes as little as $100, on advertising. This small investment will allow you to play around with ads to see what really works and what does not. Once you know, feel free to invest more into your next round of advertisements.
  2. Don’t Overanalyze Google AdWords
    • Opening Google AdWords for the first time can be an overwhelming experience for most business owners who were looking to simply advertise their company to the masses. While the AdWords interface can be strikingly complex for newcomers, understand that you don’t need to use all of the features in your first round of advertisement. Keep it simple initially, then expand upon your work once you begin to see some results.
  3. Patience is a Virtue
    • As is the case in many other areas of life, patience is key! If you place money into advertisement and it does not pan out for you initially, don’t throw in the towel right away, instead consider how you can tweak your next ads to get more customers buying your product.

 

Understanding Google AdWords Terminology

In order to understand anything new in the business world, it is highly advised that you begin by seeking out a basic understanding of the terminology used in association with that particular business practice. This is the approach we will take in getting you acquainted with the terminology used by Google AdWords:

  • Keywords:  Keywords are the words or phrases that people type into search engines like Google when they are seeking information on a particular topic. When a keyword that you designated is typed in by a search engine user, your ad(s) will show up!
  • Impressions:  When using Google AdWords, you will be given a statistic called “impressions”, which simply indicates how many times your particular keyword has been searched for. This will give you a good sense of whether or not the keyword/phrase you choose is as popular as you thought it might be.
  • Click-Through Rate (CTR):  This is the “bread and butter” of your Google AdWords keyword campaign. In order to understand what your CTR is, divide the amount of clicks you receive on your ad by the amount of impressions. This signifies the amount of users who have landed on your page as a result of clicking on your ad.
  • Conversions:  A conversion is usually a sale, but in general it mean the user took the action you wanted them to take.  In some cases, it may be something like signing up for an email list or entering their personal information but most of the time it will be about them making a purchase.

 

Google AdWords: The Basics

Now that you have a better understanding of the terminology behind Google AdWords, let’s take a look at how Google operates their AdWords platform:

Google counts the amount of times people click on your ads then charges you for each click. Overall, Google AdWords operates like an auction house, requesting that you set up both an overall budget and a bid. The bid establishes how much you are willing to pay per click whereas the budget will be deducted each time someone clicks on your ad.

  • If your maximum bid is $5, Google will show your ad to people as long as others are not bidding more to show their ads with the same keywords you are using. This is done because naturally, Google would like to increase their revenue as well. But fear not, if people are bidding less overall for the keyword(s) you want your ad to show up for, Google will take this into account and may actually charge you less than your initial bid.
  • If you read the information above and believe your business doesn’t stand a chance based on the fact others have larger budgets, think again! Google looks at the quality of your ad in turning “clicks” into customers. If your ad produces a great follow through rate, it is good for Google’s business because people will continue to click on those ads. Many businesses believe that throwing money at something will make it more likely to stick but that is not always the case, especially with Google!
    • Your budget in Google AdWords is set daily and unless you pause the process, runs endlessly! So, imagine you create 10 unique campaigns for various keywords with a daily budget of $10. If you let your campaigns run for an entire month while paying little attention to them, you could rack up a $3,000 bill, which could break your company depending on its size! That is why you need to ensure that your ads convert people into buyers. If you bring in more revenue than you are spending on your ads, then you are in good shape!

 

Google AdWords: Account Set-Up

  1. Click Google AdWords then select “Start Now”
  2. Enter your email address (Gmail is preferred)
  3. Set up your first campaign:
    • Decide how much to spend
      • Cost per Click (CPC) = your profit x commission for Google x your conversion rate. An example of this would be $100 (your profit) x 0.3 (Google’s commission) x 1% (your conversion rate) = $.30
      • That means you can spend $.30 per click on Google AdWords and still make $70 per sale(given your conversion rate stays the same).
    • Choose a target audience
      • Select the demographics that are most likely to apply to your audience. Consider this carefully as you don’t want to overextend your outreach but you also don’t want to sell yourself short. Also, do your research in this area by looking at a variety of keyword choices that will help draw in additional revenue. Look at your competition because that will give you a better understand of what you’re up against!

Sit your bid

  • Establish how much you want to pay per click. Make sure you still make money!
  • Write your ad
    • When writing your ad, be sure to check your competition to see where they have been successful. Additionally, ensure that prior to posting your ad, you review your own landing page. This is vital because if people land on your page but can’t find their way around, they will quickly leave!   Do your research folks!

We hope you have found the information above to be relevant on your path to using Google’s AdWords service to improve your business’s bottom line. We highly encourage your first venture into using AdWords for your business to be accompanied with more than one ad whenever possible and affordable. This is adamantly encouraged due to the fact that using multiple ads allows your business to make comparisons between them, which will ultimately help you decipher which ads are more effective than others with your consumer base. Once you and your colleagues have determined the ad strategy that you believe will be most effective for your business, create your first couple of ads (don’t forget to vary the way they look so you can test out each one’s effectiveness), take a step back, and wait to see how the public reacts!

At this point in time it may be tempting to consistently refresh your computer screen to determine whether your ad campaign is as successful as you would like, but be patient. Give your customers time to come to you. Also, keep in mind success is not identified by how many people click on your ad, it is all about the conversions your ad brings in. With these thoughts in mind, exercise patience and monitor your ads to determine whether trends exist at the end of a month. Once those trends have been identified, you know what to do…improve upon your ads by adding more keywords and trying again! We wish you the best of luck on your AdWords adventure.

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