Can You Really Win With Google Adwords

The Google AdWords arrive from Google in 2002 as a self service advertising program for small businesses. It avoided monthly payments to Google for the Google managed adwords program, which was not affordable for many businesses. Google would otherwise set and manage the campaigns. Google still has a program where it manages campaigns for its clients but the Adwords program is far more popular today. Google has made the program so easy to set up and use, that it is the major revenue generating sector of the company.

Setting up a Google Adwords account is simple and fast. You just login to Google Adwords pay about $5.00 and that's about it for opening up an account. Then the next thing you do is set up your campaign.

This involves selecting your keywords in a way that each keyword relates to your target audience. Based on your keywords, you then write your three line ad and tell searchers where to find your website. If this sounds complicated it really isn't. In fact, Google helps you do just about everything,including selecting the keywords. Google also has a routine that will estimate the traffic to expect, the bid cost and the position on the page when your keyword is searched.

And there is more. Google will optimize your campaign for you at no additional cost. While the setup and start of a campaign is fast and easy, the question now is how good is it? Here are some metrics you can look at and evaluate. · First, you want to know how often your ad is viewed by someone. Google calls this an Impression.

You will want to know what you a paying for each impression. This is given in CPMs or cost per impression. · Then there is the measure called Click Through Rate or CTR, which is the number of clicks divided by the number of impressions.

Then · There is the conversion rate that is the number of sales divided by the number of clicks. Google even helps you tie all of this together with what they call a Quality Score. This is Google' measure of how well your ad relates to your web-page and to your website. However, some of the components of the quality score (QS) are kept secret however. If you have a high QS, then Google gives you a better page position at a lower bid price. This way, with a higher quality ad you can obtain a better search engine position for less money.

Well is all of this really worth it? Consider this: · Google gets about 47% of all search engine traffic and that's about 234 million searches each and every day. · You can easily design your campaign to target specific audiences or traffic that you know has an interest in your product or service or they would not click on your site. · You can set a daily budget limit for your advertising cost.

· Google will help design your ad campaign. · You are charged only for the clicks that you get so you are only paying for results. · The reach can be expanded via use of their content network. · Local and regional targeting are also available. You can set your ads to appear only to people searching in a particular state, city, or region. Now it's easy to target online customers within, say, 25 miles of your front door.

Google Adwords is a very powerful advertising program but will it guarantee you will make a profit? Of course not, but profitability is a challenge with almost any business whether brick and mortar or online. So in later installments, I'll discuss the problems and strategies for winning with the profitability challenges of Google Adwords. Copyright (c) 2008 John Lane.

John R. Lane, MBA http://www.MyCashFlow-Website.com/ Profit Strategies For Internet Marketing Using Google Adwords and Other Search Engines.