Advertising With Google Adwords - Part 1

But that isn't all. Results from Adwords campaigns can be monitored immediately and adjusted to fine-tune and improve the campaign - all for a very low cost. Yes, some people have spent thousands of dollars advertising with Google Adwords and lost money. These are the people that haven't done much pre planning before launching their programs. These are also the people that don't understand how to fine-tune their campaign to improve results. Of course, you won't have to worry about making that mistake! Just follow this guide and I guarantee you will be able to develop a successful campaign.

Before we start, there are a few definitions that you need to know.

You will also find these sponsored links within other people's web pages labeled as "Google Ads." Google provides an easy interface to allow anyone to log on and start advertising with Google Adwords. The Google Ads are triggered by the search phrases that people type into the search box. These search phrases are known as Keywords. When someone types in a keyword associated with your ad, the ad will display as a sponsored link at the top and right-hand side of the Google search results page (just like you see in the figure above.)

• You only have to pay Google when someone clicks on your ad.
• You can make your ad link to any area of your website or even a separate landing page.
• You have full control of starting, pausing, and deleting campaigns.
• You have full control over the cost of the campaign and can set daily monetary caps.
• You have full control in selecting the keywords that serve up your ad.
• Google provides a comprehensive set of tools to monitor and fine-tune your campaign.
• You have full control of which geographic area sees your ad - make it a local, national, or global campaign!

1. It takes time to build the proper on-page/off-page criteria to build natural organic traffic. Google Adwords will bring traffic to your web pages immediately while you are working in the background to improve your non-paid organic traffic.

2. You sell a product that works well as an impulse buy. Downloadable products such as e-books or software offer instant gratification for the buyer and can work very well in a stand-alone Google Adwords campaign.

3. Even if you have strong organic traffic, you can focus on low-cost keywords that can drive additional traffic to specific pages and topics within your site.

Before you begin the step-by-step process of creating your Adwords campaign, you should have the following tools in place.

• A functional business website
• Ability to send e-mails to prospective customers
• Ability to deliver the product or service you are advertising (e.g., shopping cart or download service)

I recommend the Standard Edition option since it provides many more campaign tools than the Starter Edition.

Go ahead and select "Standard Edition" and then click on "Continue."

You will now be asked to select the language and location for your Adwords program. Just select "English" as the language for now (unless you know that you will be targeting a different language.) Google defaults the location to "United States." You can leave it this way for now. These parameters are easily changed later. Remember, we are just setting up our account - not starting a full campaign. When your done with this page, click on "Continue."

The next page that comes up asks you to enter your campaign ad. We are just going to put in a fake ad for the moment. There's still a lot of work to be done before you actually start advertising with Google Adwords. However, Google does require you enter something in order to create your account. Notice that you only have 25 characters (including spaces) for the first line and 35 characters for the other 2 lines. Take a look at the example below and use it or create your own ad. Don't use any words that might cause Google to delete your ad (e.g., profanity) - let common sense prevail.

Click "Continue" and then you will be asked to choose your keywords. Remember, we are just setting up your account at this point so choose whatever word you want. You can see in the below example that I choose "small business growth" as my keyword phrase.

Hit "Continue" and you will now come to a screen that asks you to set your currency and spending budget. Because we aren't actually initiating a campaign just yet, we will enter small values here. Select "US Dollars" as the currency and then use $00.10 as your daily budget (10 cents) and $0.01 as your maximum bid price (1 cent.) See the figure below for clarification. When your done, click "Continue."

The next page has you review your campaign. There are two checkboxes towards the bottom of the page to allow Google to send you tips and performance improvements. I recommend checking these as they will be good educational resources as you learn about advertising with Google Adwords.

Review your campaign and then click "Continue to Sign Up" at the bottom of the page. Just continue to follow the directions for signing up. After you are finished, you will receive an email to verify your account and provide credit card information. Google will charge you $5 to open the account. Google's account activation wizard to will take you step-by-step through the activation process.

Once you have activated your account, your ad will start running right away so you will need to go in and pause your account. This is because we need to create a real ad and research real keywords before we launch our first campaign.

To pause your campaign, click on the "Campaign Management" tab at the very top of the Billing Preferences screen. This is the screen you are taken to once you have made credit card payment. See the figure below for clarification.

At the next screen, click on the "Campaign Summary" link located in the green bar that runs across the top of the page. Once on the Campaign Summary page, click on the "pause" button to pause your campaign (see the figure below.) After you do this, the column labeled "Current Status" will show the campaign as paused.

Now that you have set-up your Standard Edition account and paused your campaign, you are ready to read part 2 of this guide. Part 2 will discuss how you start building a library of keywords and the steps to take for organizing these keywords into campaigns and ad groups. Remember, advertising with Google Adwords is not complicated, but it does require a bit of research and pre-planning in order to build a quality campaign that is profitable.