Google AdWords, Yet Another Promotional Tool

by Jeff Colburn

Many people ask me how they can get their website listed on the first page of a search result on Google, or in the top ten listed sites. There are actually two ways to accomplish this.

The first, and easiest, way is to hire a firm that specializes in this kind of marketing. They can guarantee that you will be in the top ten, and maybe the top three, sites listed from a search. However, this service can easily cost $2,000 to $10,000 a month.

The other option involves lots of work. You will need to have good keywords, new relevant content added to your site regularly, put this content on free article sites, lots of links to and from your site (though Google may make this obsolete soon), put postings on forums that cover topics related to your website and you can use Google AdWords.

Basically, AdWords is a Pay Per Click (PPC) program that lets you bid on keywords. PPC means that a link that will take people to your site is put on a website that is set up with a PPC program. Every time someone clicks on the link to go to your site you pay a fee. That's where the term Pay Per Click comes from.

Setting up a PPC campaign on Google is pretty easy.

1. Target your customers by selecting from dozens of languages and almost 200 countries. You can narrow this down even more by selecting from a list of cities and regions.
2. Create the copy for your ad and select the keywords that will trigger the ad. Google has a tool that will help you select keywords.
3. Choose what currency you want to use, what you're willing to pay per click and how much you want to spend per day.
4. Create an AdWords account by providing your e-mail address and a password to Google. When you want to activate your ad, you log into your account and give Google your billing information.

Once this is done you can create multiple Campaigns (ads) and turn them on or off as you wish. Then, when someone does a search, the ads that bid the highest for the keyword used in the search are placed on a list on the right side of the search page.

The order is determined by the highest price paid for a keyword and the popularity of the ad. If two people bid on the keyword "Tennis," then the person who bid $2 per click will be placed above the person who bid $1 per click. If the $2 per click person reaches his budgeted maximum for the day, then his ad will no longer be displayed and the $1 per click person will move to the top of the list. Google does factor in the clickthrough rate, so if my $1 ad is below yours, but a lot more people click on my link, then my ad will be moved above your $2 ad.

So let's do the Yin and Yang thing to see the full story.