Using Google Adwords to Drive Traffic to your Website

Subscribe in a reader Internet Business October 31st, 2007

Here is my mini google lesson for the day! I am all googled out due to my recent knowledge of Simon Leungs new ‘Death of Google Adwords’ report launching tomorrow… cleverly launching on Halloween, spooooky.  Actually, I have the honor of personally knowing him and learning first hand the back-end of Google. Next week I will be attending his workshop down in San Jose, Ca (my home town!)… I am excited to grab as much content as possible and pass it on here. Hopefully I can do it in a timely manner, I know I can be LAZY. Well on with it…

Whats Important?

Highly targeted traffic is one of the most important entities in the Internet universe. Any website owner or administrator recognizes the importance of driving traffic to a website. The success of any website does not rely entirely on the site itself. You may have a terrific idea for a website, offer an excellent product or service, or have an exceptionally designed site with superb content, but if you do not use the right strategies to advertise, your site would not attract the high traffic you need. Attracting targeted traffic is a task that should be taken seriously for any site to succeed or make a profit. Fortunately, there are internet-marketing tools that help us marketers to drive traffic to our websites. One of the most significant, and effective, of these tools is Google’s Adwords.

How does Google Adwords work?

Google is the largest search engine on the web receiving over 200 million queries each day through its various services. As Google is the most popular search engine today, people are keen on having their websites achieve a higher ranking in the search engine results it provides. A high ranking can mean high traffic for that website. The search engine results page is also a great venue for advertisers to promote a product or service through ads and links. Consequently, Google launched its Adwords service, as a way for businesses to advertise products and services to a targeted audience. Google Adwords can guarantee instant traffic. In this service, Google displays relevant text based ads within its search engine results page termed as “Sponsored Links”. Whenever a particular keyword is searched on, these relevant links appear in a separate section giving excellent exposure to the sites listed.

How do you use Google Adwords?

First, you have to open an account with the Google Adwords Service. Then, you should indicate your target language and country. This is important because you would not want your products advertised in countries where your product or service cannot be sold. Afterwards, you should now create an ad group. This involves designing the ad, selecting keywords and determining maximum cost per click that you are willing to spend and defining bid amounts. The most important step in creating a successful Adwords campaign is selecting an effective title tag that will catch the attention of your target audience. The title tag, generally a short phrase, is the most important part of your Adwords campaign so make sure that it is attractive and catchy. You should describe the website clearly and accurately. The most effective advertising conveys a clear message to the target audience. With a clear message, you will be attracting qualified leads, which can eventually convert to sale. Thus, the importance of selecting the right keywords cannot be overemphasized. Hence, all those products and services that target that specific situation.

Keyword Variations

There are keyword variations you can adapt to reach more prospects. Using these varieties, misspellings and derivatives can help increase the chance of your ads being served. Broad match is targeting keywords in a loosely defined manner. Here, the ads appear based on the keywords that have been queried by other users as opposed to exact match, which calls for the keyword to match the query exactly. Meanwhile, a keyword phrase set to phrase match will only appear when the exact phrase is searched on. A negative keyword is helpful in filtering unrelated pages.

After you have decided on what title tag to use in your ad, you must now define a budget in order to maximize exposure. Google Adwords recommend a daily budget for each campaign. However, you should determine a budget that is suitable and affordable. You should also determine the maximum cost per click. Google will offer a recommended cost per click, but you do not have to stick with this. Usually, a number one position is not ideal as it can also attract unwanted traffic and useless clicks. A number two position is more preferred as it can filter useless clicks and provide traffic with a higher conversion rate.

To conclude, Google Adwords is an excellent strategy and tool in giving your site maximum exposure. Nevertheless, Google Adwords should not be your sole advertising campaign. It will definitely help you find the all-important, highly targeted traffic you need.

Don’t forget to check out that report, Death of Google Adwords, I think its going for $2 now… I got it on its test run for $1. He just nails the whole truth about google and what changes are going to be happening in the near future. If anyone does puchase this report, come back here and leave your comments. I would love to know what you think about it or if you have questions and I can pass that on to Simon.