Google Adwords Explained
Google Adwords is a form of Pay Per Click or PPC advertising, but it is only one of the many internet marketing methods at your disposal.
In the long run, you may find that it tends to be one of the costlier methods of internet marketing. Despite that, it may be the method with the most potential to obtain quick results with complete control.
The above picture displays in the two red outlined areas how the ads by Google are shown according to the Google query results.
The Google Adwords service is one that gives you the ability to select the keywords for your ad, which consists of 3 short lines of copy. You can choose the keywords that are relevant to your company, like “Landscape Tampa Fla” for example. The keywords or phrases used will be the query that clients are inputting into the Google search engine when searching for services related to yours.
When Google brings up the search results of their query, the ad that you have placed with Google Adwords will be displayed in one of the areas illustrated in the above picture.
Internet marketing comes in many forms:
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is commonly used and is very popular. This involves optimizing the website of your landscaping or lawn care company to ensure that Google displays it free of cost when a search is performed relevant to your business.
The downside with SEO is that the results take time. I find Adwords doesn’t perform as well as SEO, but the PPC ads are an excellent alternative for obtaining web traffic as you wait for your SEO efforts to pay off.
The way you pay for Adwords’ PPC ads is according to the clicks, as you pay every time someone clicks on your ad that is displayed by Google. Regardless of whether or not the web surfer purchases anything, you still end up paying out.
I am of the opinion that you would do well to continue with Adwords even once your website is ranked highly as a result of your SEO efforts.
I would suggest trying both methods.
Important Definitions:
In the picture above:
- “Clicks” describes how many times web browsers clicked on your ad in a set time period.
- “Impr” is the term given to the number of times, or impressions, your PPC ad was displayed during a set time period. This shows the potential for how many times your ad might have been clicked.
- “CTR” is the click though rate, which is determined by dividing the amount of clicks by the amount of impressions. The CTR is displayed as a percentile.
- “Avg CPC” describes the Average Cost Per Click, or the quantity you paid out every time your ad was clicked on. This number is determined by calculating the total number of clicks you had and dividing that into the amount paid out for all of the clicks. The Google Adwords feature gives you the option of establishing a ceiling for the money you will pay every time your ad is clicked, which is known as your “maximum cost per click bid.”
- “Conv” refers to the number of conversions achieved by your PPC ads, conversion being when a web visitor clicks on the PPC ad and buys your product, requests information, fills out your quotation estimate form, or signs up for one of your services.
The conversion rate is determined by dividing the clicks number into the conversions number. Tracking the conversions is an option in your Google Adwords account, but it will require customization for your website and must be activated by you.
- This area depicts the breakdown of the information regarding all the keyword phrases and how each of them performed over a set period of time. The average displayed near the page top is obtained through the sum of the various results.
Other Key Terms…
Average Position is the position in which your ad is displayed on the page of Google’s search results when a query is made for you website’s specific keywords. If, for instance, your Avg Pos is 2, your ad will usually be displayed as the second PPC ad on the search results list webpage.
Landing Page is the page on your website where your visitors will be directed, or “land”, whenever they click on one of your PPC ads, or the page to which they are directed by Google.
Negative Keyword is an important factor to keep in mind, especially if your keyword phrases are very broad. Google has a host of information on this topic, as does the Adwords book by Perry Marshall. The minus sign (-) before your keywords will be prevented from being displayed for any query containing those words. This is important to keep in mind, and I bring it up so you can study more in depth about it.
Quality Score is the Google ranking for every keyword used for your website. A number of factors are taken into account as Google determines your quality score, particularly how relevant your keyword is to your customers and to your website’s content both. You would do well to learn more about this subject, as you will end up paying less for each click as you improve your score.
Key Factors of PPC:
1) You may end up spending a fortune if you aren’t on top of it. (Buy a book to help you learn how to use PPC without paying hand over fist.)
2) Marketing ideas can be quickly tested for a low price using PPC, and you can split test a number of ads to get an idea of which is more popular by seeing which ones people click on more. This will be an excellent way of testing your headlines to be successful with any printed materials for physical marketing.
3) You can immediately get traffic for your web page.
4) Works with SEO to obtain traffic to your site as quickly and effectively as possible.
5) Results are easily measurable, and you will be able to determine which messages are most effective at reaching your clients.
6) Split test regularly to ensure your ads are successful.
7) Keep ads dynamic and interesting, and you may be surprised to find certain of your ideas will work much better than others.
8) Always be improving and changing your copy, keywords, landing pages, negative keywords, etc.
9) Follow Google’s rules to avoid being banned. They don’t need your money, so stick to the guidelines to avoid being banned.
10) Never forget about an ad once it’s set. Always be improving and tweaking your keywords and ads in order to improve your SEO ranking and pay less per click.
11) You’d be surprised what a huge difference tiny modifications can make. Spend no less than half an hour every week improving your marketing campaigns, and spend half an hour a day on bettering your ads and monitoring your cost per click to ensure success.
Follow @LawnCareMktg