How best to use Adwords

what is google adwords
Adwords are the advertisements lined up on the side of your screen when you view your search results in Google. Whilst some people consider Adwords as simply paid traffic generation, they may fail to see the SEO advantage that a tool like Adwords can offer.

Many users of Adwords will try advertising once or twice and when they find their advertisement removed after only a couple of days, they may give up on their campaign. Advertising online is similar to offline advertising.

A hit and miss approach with occasional Adwords is unlikely to reap any benefits, so creating a campaign to run over a period of time will benefit you more. To do this in the most effective way it is important to know what matters to Google.

Three of the most important factors are cost per click, click-through rate and your daily budget. All three begin with choosing the most effective keywords for your business.

  1. Cost per click – Once you have determined the most effective keywords, it is best to begin with a minimum bid on your selections. Google will inform you of your position and you can always raise your bid if your ads do not appear on the first page.
  2. Click-through model – Google cares more about the clickthrough rate than the amount you have bid for the keyword. Whatever keyword you have chosen, with this model, Google will only display the ads that are being clicked the most regardless of the amount you are paying. You therefore need a good advertisement for this model to work, an advertisement that is getting a great response from searchers. If you manage this, then leave it up. If you find it isn’t working then look at whether the keyword actually fits with the rest of the text in the ad and is definitely aligned in text with the intended landing page.
  3. Daily budget – In this model you set a daily budget with Google for each of your AdWords campaigns, this amount is not necessarily the amount you will pay. Once your ads start displaying you will only pay for the advertisements clicked on and it may be that you are underbidding on clicks and overbidding on daily budget.

An effective Adwords campaign begins with some solid research into keywords. You want to try to avoid the most commonly used keywords and find some phrases that will cost you less to advertise. Although you may get less people searching for those words, you will be targeting potential customers who are more likely to purchase from you and end up getting a higher clickthrough rate.

Although there are other similar advertising platforms like Google Adwords, it remains the most commonly used advertising platform online and one of the most effective.