Your small business is doing well but you know you could do better if you do a little bit of advertising to help reach a wider audience. But for many of us, advertising is cost prohibitive, available only for the big companies with big budgets. For traditional print media, that is definitely true. But today with the many advertising opportunities that the Internet offers businesses of all sizes, it is now very feasible to develop and run an effective online advertising campaign. There are several ways to develop online advertising campaigns, but this article will focus on developing a Google AdWords campaign and highlight a few key areas that you need to understand before you get started.

Creating Your Campaign

The process of developing an advertising campaign using Google AdWords is pretty simple, but there are some fine points you need to understand to effectively utilize your advertising budget. The following are the basic steps you should follow when setting up your advertising campaign:

• Determine the goal of your ad campaign
• Choose your geographic area
• Select your keywords
• Develop your ad and landing page
• Assign your maximum cost per click and daily budget
• Assess an adjust

Determine the goal of the ad campaign

Like every marketing campaign, you need to determine the goal or outcome of the activity. Are you trying to drive people to your web site to generate leads or make sales? Are you interested in getting people to your site to learn about your offerings so they contact you to find out more? Are you trying to drive people to sign up for a seminar or Web cast? Your goal will dictate many aspects of your campaign, including what keywords to bid on and what your landing page will offer to your visitors.

Choose your geographic area

AdWords campaigns offer you a choice of advertising nationally, internationally or within a very specific geographic area. If you are a local business that provides services or products only to a local market, you can select down to the zip code where you want your ads to be shown. This gives you control as to who your advertisements are shown. Your ad is displayed only to your target audience in your key market, thereby minimizing costs by avoiding clicks from someone outside of your service area.

Select Your Keywords Wisely

Selecting your keywords is an important aspect of your online PPC campaign. It is important to select good keywords that will attract your most likely prospect. You don’t want generic terms – you want to be as specific as possible and use keyword phrases whenever possible. The more generic, the more likely the bid price will be much higher than more specific terms. Research your competition and see what keywords they use. Google also includes a keyword suggestion tool based on your main keyword. This tool will suggest many different keyword phrases and you can choose them if you wish.

Create Your Ad and Landing Page

Developing a pay-per-click ad campaign needs a strategy coordinating the ad you run in the search engine and your landing page on your web site. I am assuming you already have a quality web site that won’t scare your visitors away. Paying money for an ad campaign that attracts your prospects to your site to only send them away with an inferior web site is not a good use of your marketing dollars. Just like everything on the web, you have two to three seconds to get and keep their attention, or you’ve lost the opportunity. Trust me – they won’t be back twice if they don’t see a site that makes them feel secure.

Your ad should include the keyword they used, send them a quick message, and take them to a landing page for more information. Like every good direct marketing activity, you need to have a call to action to entice the searcher to click on your ad. Google does not give you many characters (yes characters!) to get your message across, so crisp messages are key. For example, the following is a PPC ad for AdWords:

Using AdWords
Common AdWords mistakes and
how to avoid them – free course
www.vista-consulting.com

You can run several ads that will rotate each time someone uses one of your keywords. This allows you to test different ways of projecting your message. Google gives you feedback on your ad by letting you know the percentage of the time the ad is shown and the click-through rate of that ad. You can then decide whether the ad is working, and if not, edit it and try again. Writing your ad copy seems simple, but you will have to play with your messages to be sure you can effectively say what you need to.

Although the ad displays your domain name, the headline should actually link to your landing page, not your home page. If you take visitors to your home page of your web site, you will miss many opportunities to capture their attention. Make your landing page interesting and relevant so that when the visitors arrive, you are sure to keep their attention and turn them into prospects.

Assign Your Maximum Cost per Click and Daily Budget

One of the biggest mistakes that I see many small businesses make is to overbid for a keyword. Your maximum cost per click can start extremely small. I usually start new campaigns at five cents a click and watch how the keywords perform. If you are getting visitors to your site that are doing what you want them to do, then stay small and reap the benefits. Your daily budget ensures that you never spend over a certain amount each month.

If your daily budget is $5.00, then if your campaign is attracting attention, then you can expect to pay Google $150.00 per month. However, you may pay less than that based on the activity associated with your keywords.

Assess and Adjust

Google AdWords campaigns need to be assessed regularly to be sure you are performing the way you want the campaign to perform. After your campaign has been active for about a week, check to make sure your keywords are still active and see where you ad is positioned on the page. If the keyword is inactive, Google suggests what minimum bid you need to reactivate it. You can also try to set up a different campaign with a more targeted ad to keep the price low.

Your positioning is important as well. You really want your ad to be in the top 10, but not necessarily in first or second. Lots of people click on the first or second ad because it is usually at the top of the page. That doesn’t mean that they are necessarily your target prospect. I usually keep my ads along the side, in fourth or fifth position to maximize the click-through rate from your target.

Be Seen, Be Successful

Google AdWords is a wonderful tool for many small businesses to use to drive visitors to your web site. With all the right pieces in place, you can build awareness and grow revenue for your business at a reasonable price. Be conservative at first, but over time, I’m sure you will be able to easily justify increasing your budget for your campaign while increasing your sales.