Google Adwords for Beginners

Google Adwords is pretty straight forward, so even if you consider yourself something of a technophobe you need not worry! To put it simply, Google Adwords allows you to advertise your online business at a budget that suits you; it places your ads in places they are most likely to engage the right people; and you only pay when somebody clicks on your ad. If you are new to the concept of Google Adwords this beginners guide with set you on your way.

Quite simply Google Adwords offers you benefits and opportunities other forms of advertising don´t so in terms of successfully promoting your business it´s a need-to-know subject. For now what you “need to know” is that Google Adwords can get you on to page 1 of Google searches, you can set yourself a daily budget and the campaign can be cancelled at any time. All in all there are more positives than negatives and providing your website is geared to sell your products and services, the expenditure will more than pay for itself.

Setting up a Google Adwords Account

You can either set up your advertising campaign from your Google account or straight to the root by visiting https://adwords.google.co.uk. To create your ads select the “Campaign” folder from the menu and select the options in the list provided. Most questions are straight forward and are set to default anyway, but there are two important questions you need to consider; whether to target your audience using keyword targeting or through websites, and how much will your budget be.

Let´s tackle budget first – it´s simple. How much do you want to spend in a day? Say between £5- £10. That will cost you between £150- £300 a month. Update this amount and cancel the campaign whenever you like and you won´t get charged for it. Nor does Google allow your ad to exceed your budget.

Keyword Targeting v Site Targeting Adword Campaigns?

The trickier of the two decisions is how to find your audience and it may take some months of experimenting to determine your best option. Firstly you have “keyword targeting” which places your ad on websites, Google front page and gmail accounts whenever the keywords you have selected for your campaign appears. You are then charged costs every time somebody clicks on your ad (pay per click – PPC), but because you can control the budget you are not in danger of overspending.

Site targeting places your ad on websites you would like your ad to appear. The pricing is a little different. You are still able to choose a budget, but for that you are given a number of x1000 ads that appear on related sites. This is known as Click-per-Mille (CPM) and you are charged whether or not anybody clicks on it – so a bit like placing your ad in a magazine.

Your other options to consider are language and location. This should be straightforward enough, and although the temptation to go global itches like a mosquito bite, to start off with target your local area as you are more likely to have success.