AdWords Answers

You've got your products, either ones you've created or someone else's that you're going to promote. You've got a killer Web site all set up to make sales and bring in money while you sleep. You're all set to become the next internet millionaire.

There's only one problem: No one is actually visiting your site. Now what?

There are several effective ways to drive traffic to your site, ranging from the "brute force" method of article writing and bum marketing to the arcane arts of search engine optimization.

One of the easiest (and potentially most expensive) is pay-per-click advertising with Google AdWords.

What are "AdWords"?

"AdWords“ are those little text ads or ”sponsored links" you see at the top and along the right-hand side of the search results page when you Google something. Here's the way it works:

The AdWords program essentially allows you "rent" certain keywords of your choice on Google. You choose the keywords you want to rent, you create a simple text ad, and that ad appears whenever someone searches one of your keywords. If that someone clicks on the link in your ad, Google charges you for that click.

How Much Does it Cost?

That depends. The price, or "cost per click" isn't fixed. Advertisers bid on individual keywords, so the more popular your keywords the more expensive it will be. When you create an AdWords campaign, you'll set the maximum price per click you're willing to bid. Google will try to optimize your ad's placement based on your bid amount.

You'll want to bid high enough for your ad to show in the top three positions on the first page of search results. The aspiring internet marketer should focus on keywords with an average cost per click of between $0.10 and $0.20. Note that this figure is for the average cost per click - the maximum bid you set will typically be higher.

Does It Work?

And then some. Google has become a business phenomenon by doing one simple thing and doing it very well: It helps people looking for information on the internet find what they're looking for. As an internet marketer, you're in the business of selling specific information to a specific customer. You want Google pointing your potential customers to your information.

The key to the effectiveness of AdWords is that your ads are extremely targeted. If Google just showed your ad randomly to anyone using the search engine, regardless of what they were searching for, it would be next to useless.

Instead, Google shows your ad only to people searching for exactly the information you're selling. If you're selling information about “how to make fish tacos,” your ad will only show to people who search for information on “how to make fish tacos.”

Your ad will not only show to exactly those people who are most likely to be interested in your product, it will appear exactly when they're most interested in it - i.e., when they're running a search for that information.

Advertising just doesn't get any more targeted than this.

What Are the Drawbacks?

It works so well that everybody uses it. As a result, bid prices continually increase. It can get expensive.

In addition, it's pay-per-click advertising, not pay-per-sale advertising. If someone clicks on your ad, you pay Google. You pay even if that click came from someone looking for free stuff who had absolutely no chance of buying your product (you can use negative keywords, such as "-free," to more narrowly target your audience).

This also means that if your product page (or your product!) is lousy, Google can't save you. You'll get lots of traffic, but you won't convert any of that traffic into sales. Instead, you'll just have to pay Google for all of that traffic and you'll lose money.

So the first thing you have to do to execute a successful AdWords campaign is make sure your Web site and product are of sufficient quality to convert as many of those click-throughs as possible into paying customers.

How Do You Get Clicks?

The best ways to get a high click-through rate are to optimize your keywords, "prime" your campaign, and write a great ad. We'll tackle keyword optimization first.

To continue our example above, let's say you're selling fish taco recipes. You don't want to rent the keywords  <taco> or <Mexican food>. You're better off not even renting < fish taco >. Your best option is to focus on very specific, optimized keywords. These are specific phrases that users enter in "quotes" when running a search. For example, you might rent <"fish taco recipes">.

When you choose very narrow, optimized keywords, you insure that everyone who sees your ad is looking for exactly what you're selling. This way, you don't pay for clicks from people who are unlikely to purchase your product when they get to your site.

There's another trick you can use to maximize click-throughs and minimize costs. When you first launch your AdWords campaign, set your maximum bid very high. With a high maximum bid, you're placement will be very good and you'll get a lot of click-throughs. A lot of click-throughs will convince Google that your ad is highly relevant to your chosen keywords. The higher your relevance, the lower your actual average cost per click will be.

This is what I call “priming your campaign.” Once the campaign is nicely primed and your relevancy is established, you can lower your maximum bid and still retain your placement.

Finally, there's no substitute for writing a good ad: optimized keywords and campaign priming just insure that the right people are actually seeing your ad. They're still not going to click on it unless the ad is effective.

The secret to writing a great ad shouldn't be all that secret: Offer your prospect some bait that he or she can't find anywhere else. Don't write: “Fish Tacos: Click here for great recipes.” Write: “Fish Taco Fantastico! 7 Secrets of the World's Best Fish Tacos!”

Use colorful, attention-grabbing headlines. Use powerful trigger words, such as "secrets" and "discover" and "hidden" and "reveals.“ Use specifics that lend your ad substance and credibility, such as ”7 Secrets." Use superlatives ("the World's Best!") and exclamations. Remember, these are very short ads. You probably can't overdo it.

Google AdWords is the fastest and easiest way to drive traffic to your site. Optimize your keywords, prime your campaigns, and write great ads. Make sure you're driving traffic to an effective site promoting a good product.

If you do each of these things, AdWords can be an effective weapon in your internet marketing arsenal.

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