Who doesn't love the idea of driving sales on a reasonable budget? Or the power to quickly and easily modify your ads based on their performance? Google AdWords can be an affordable and powerful tool to accelerate your website traffic, which can eventually help you reach your sales goals. But before you get too excited, there are a few things you need to know about Google's advertising service.
Think of your approach to Google AdWords as you would dating. Odds are, you won't meet your soulmate on the first date. Similarly, your initial interaction with Google AdWords may or may not be love at first sight. But don't be afraid, with a little patience, financial support, time and energy, you're destined for a match made in heaven.
Setting up the date
You wouldn't set up a date without identifying some of your partner's interests. With Google AdWords, you'll want to identify the search needs of your potential consumers. Maybe it's a question they have; something they want to know that they turn to Google for. For the sake of this example, let's say you own a restaurant and you'd like to boost your Valentine's Day dinner traffic. To do this, you need to reach potential customers turning to a trusty Google search to help them decide on the perfect restaurant to bring their special someone. They may search something like, "Most romantic restaurants in Roseville" or "Intimate dinner spots near me". Keeping these search requests in mind, you create your Google ads.
Love at first sight
Anytime someone searches the keywords you've identified, your message (the ad) pops up in front of all the other results. What's neat about Google AdWords is that it allows you to narrow or broaden your keywords and specify visibility based on the searcher's geography and the time of day.
Putting a price on love
Of course, you must pay to get your message seen. Google's advertising works like an auction. You bid for the ad space and prices are determined by the quality of the ad because Goggle wants its users to have the best search experience as possible. Google will rate the quality of your ad based on the expected clickthrough rate, the relevance of the ad and the landing page experience. The goal with Google advertising is to drive searchers to your website, which hopefully leads to a conversion action (getting them to do what you want them to do.) If you're a restaurant, maybe this means the searcher views your online menu and calls to make a reservation.
Great relationships require work
Sounds great, right? And it certainly can be. The challenge is delivering the right message, to the right person, at the right time. It takes effort on your end to measure the campaign and adjust your keywords and messaging to turn that initial Google searcher into a customer. As with any worth-while investment, you get out what you put in.
Like all successful relationship, this process requires hard work and some patience. But it will be worth it when you start seeing results and you're able to optimize your ad budget.