“So, you’re telling me that I need to pay Google every time someone clicks on my online ad?” … Yes. Yes I am. And it’s less crazy and scary than it sounds. Let me tell you why it’s worth it. …
Hi I’m Vi Wickam and I am here for Honest SEO Basics brought to you by Get Listed and Social Edge/Social Media Training.
Today we are going to talk about Google Ads.
Some of you might be wondering what Google AdWords is, and a lot of people say “Oh you have to use Google AdWords!” or “You shouldn’t mess with Google AdWords.”
But a lot of people don’t really know what Google AdWords is. So I’m going to tell you a little bit about it today!
Google AdWords is online advertising. It’s pay-per-click advertising- primarily that is the product that Google sells. So it’s not the only pay-per-click advertising program, but it is the biggest one out there.
Google AdWords is owned by Google. Pay-per-click advertising means that each time somebody clicks on your ads, that you are charged money by Google.
Primarily AdWords works like this- I say Underwater Basket weaving is a service I’m offering. So I’m going to bid on that keyword. I’ll bid on “underwater basket weaving”, and I’ll bid on “underwater basket weaver”, and “basket weaving”, and a few other variations.
And then I’m going to say when somebody types these key words into Google, I’m willing to pay $0.25 for each of those clicks. Now, maybe I’ll pay $0.50 if they search for “underwater basket weaving in Denver, CO”, because that’s close to where I’m at, but I’ll only pay $0.25 if it’s just “underwater basket weaving”.
So that’s just a general idea of how triggering words- how my ads are going to show up.
I then type in what I want my ad to look like in Google. Then when somebody types in “underwater basket weaving” and my ad shows up, I don’t have to pay anything until they click on my ad and go to my website. That’s how pay-per-click advertising works with Google AdWords.
There are a lot of other options within Google AdWords, and I could get into more detail here than you possibly want to hear, but that’s the general functionality of AdWords for most of you.
There are extensions I can do in AdWords. I can show phone numbers, I can show other pages on your website when your ad triggers, we can show your Google Maps profile- if it shows in your area… There are all sorts of ways we can expand that.
If they clicked on your website, we can then follow them around the internet and show display ads to them as well- which you can see how much possibility there is within AdWords. It’s a big platform- there’s a lot you can do with it.
But to get down to the nitty gritty- I bid on a keyword. When somebody types that keyword, my ad shows up- if my bid is high enough for my ad to show up. Google has a ranking out and I’m not going to get into that right now.
But if my bid is high enough, my ad shows. If they click on my ad, I pay Google that $0.25 and they end up on my website.
Google AdWords also has conversion tracking which means that I can know if somebody has clicked on my ad, they ended up on my website, and then they bought something, or they filled out a contact form, or whatever kind of action that I’m looking for them to take- I can track that as a “conversion”.
So there’s so many things that I can tell you about AdWords, but I think it’s important that you understand the basic, basic functionality which is- we bid on a keyword, Google shows our ad when somebody types that keyword.
If they click on the ad, we pay Google money. And when they get to our website, we hope that our website is awesome and we convert that visitor into a customer who pays us money.
Provided that we get more money out of this formula than we put into it, Google AdWords is awesome!
I have some customers that get $5 or $10 for every dollar that they spend on their words. But if you don’t know what you’re doing and you aren’t careful with it, it is an easy way to spend a lot of money without getting very much in return.
So I would encourage you to, if you’re going to spend money on AdWords, to either become very educated yourself or hire somebody who is an educated AdWords expert to manage AdWords for you.
A really good AdWords person is not going to come cheap, but you should be able to find somebody within your budget if you’re willing to spend a few hundred dollars a month. Somebody who really knows AdWords could make a factor 5 or 10 difference in your response and your conversions that happen as a result of the ad.
Be careful, be cautious, be smart about it.
I’ll have some more lessons where I go into more depth about specific parts of Google AdWords… But for right now, there’s your basics of what is Google AdWords!
I hope you have a fantastic week, a fantastic month, a fantastic year! Make lots of money and have a wonderful time! I’ll see you next time.
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