If you’d like to know what Google AdWords is, read the first part to this blog, Google AdWords – Part One
Starting a Google AdWords Campaign
To start a Google AdWords campaign, an online marketer should go to adwords.google.com, click on the button labeled ‘Get started now’ and sign up for an account. As soon as he or she is logged in, they will have to click the button labeled ‘Create your first campaign’. Then, one selects the campaign type and name. The first step involves choosing the campaign type, and it is highly recommended that an individual goes for the ‘Search Network only’ option followed by giving the campaign a name. Also, the tick next to the ‘Include search partners’ can be removed for now as it can always be changed later.
The next step involves choosing the geographic location where one would like his or her ads to show. This involves deciding how small or large a geographical area they would wish to target. An individual go for entire countries, states, provinces, cities, regions of countries or even United States congressional districts. Also, one can select custom-designated geographical areas. Examples of these include the radius of a set number of kilometers or miles around a certain address or longitude-latitude coordinates. This can be done by clicking the ‘let me choose …’ button and then searching for the most suitable area.
Choosing a ‘bid strategy’ and setting of a daily budget is the next step. This involves changing the default ‘bid strategy’ to the option of manually setting bids for clicks. By doing this, the account holder gets more control and will be able to learn AdWords at a higher level of understanding. One can always change to one of the numerous automatic options afterwards. The account holder’s daily is the maximum that Google is allowed to charge him or her per day. Chances are that most of the days someone will hit the maximum. Several options for payments are offered by Google. There are manual payments whereby the account holder makes payments before the ads show, or automatic payments that are made automatically after the ads show. Also, certain businesses are eligible for a credit line by Google that involves monthly invoicing. It is advisable for an account holder to set his or her daily budget in a way that the checking account will not get emptied if a major mistake is made. While a person can always come back and reload the account, having a safety net is important.
The ‘Ad Extensions’ section can be ignored for the time being. This may be a vital part of any campaign. All in all, it can be left for now and added later after the account holder has finished all the steps. The holder clicks on the ‘save and continue’ button.
What follows next is creation of the first ad group and writing of the first ad. Most searchers click on ads if the keyword they are searching for is included the headline. It is therefore recommended that an account holder uses his or her keywords in their headlines when they can. There is a limit of 25 characters, meaning that shorter synonyms or abbreviations will need to be used for certain search terms. The second and third line only has space for 35 characters of text each. Individuals will be most successful in a majority of the markets if they describe a benefit on the second line and an offer or feature on the third line. One can always test later on the order that converts better.
Google may place the field for someone’s display URL below the main ad copy, which is the wed address seen by people in the ad. However, when an ad is displayed on the search results page, the URL will actually be shown right below the headline. This display URL should be the same domain as the website, although the URL itself does not necessarily have to be the particular landing page that searchers are taken to.
What follows is the account holder inserting his/her keywords into the account’s keyword field. It is advisable to paste in the keywords starting with just a single set, and adding the appropriate symbols to find out precisely how many searches of each type will be gotten. It is not advisable to dump keywords in by their hundreds or thousands when getting started. It is recommended for the account holder to begin with a small handful of important keywords and then work from there.
Setting the maximum cost per click is the next step. While doing this setting, which is called the ‘default bid’, it is important to realize that each keyword is theoretically a different market. This means that every one of someone’s major keywords will require a bid price of its own. Google will allow a person to set individual keywords for each of the keywords afterwards. For those with a tight budget, it is advisable to bid on low-cost keywords so that the ad can be seen by as many searchers as possible. Due to budget limitations, if someone is going for high-priced keywords, he or she will quickly exhaust their budgets. This means the ads will only be observable during a part of the day rather than for the entire 24 hours.
The final step involves reviewing everything. The account holder should double-check his or her ads and keywords to ensure that they are the best possible match. In addition, one should check their cost-per-click to ensure they get the positions on the desired page. One’s daily budget should be double-checked to make sure that the bank account is not unwittingly drained right out of the gate. As soon as this is done, it is time to enter the billing information. The ads will start showing immediately after confirmation of payment information has been done.
For a Google AdWords campaign to be successful, certain guidelines must be followed. One of them involves the marketer knowing what he/she is selling. Some people just wish to have more traffic to their sites. However, when they get there, it is not immediately clear what it is that they are selling. It is advisable for someone to know exactly what they are selling and what they want people to do. This is followed by focusing the entire strategy around that. Failure to get this clearly defined can lead to the entire strategy getting muddled. Determining what someone is willing to pay for a sale is also a good idea. Once this is known, a marketer will be able to move forward while figuring out what he or she would like the budget to be. Keyword research is essential too. Those who have done keyword research will have a rough idea of the keyword space. Basic keyword research can be done using Google’s keyword tool.
