| Focus your Google AdWords campaign on your | | | | coming from, how much time they're spending on |
| target market. Know what customers you want and | | | | your website, how many & what pages are |
| who you don't want. As an example, if you're a real | | | | being viewed most often...the list goes on. A good |
| estate salesperson, your prospective clients might be | | | | traffic analyzer is worth its weight in gold. Without |
| in a tightly defined geographic area; so there's | | | | one, there's no way to effectively manage an |
| probably no need to launch a nation-wide advertising | | | | Adwords® campaign. You don't drive a car |
| campaign. Your money will be better spent in your | | | | without a speedometer or gas gauge, so don't run a |
| own back yard...unless of course you're targeting | | | | website without a traffic analyzer! |
| clients who work for an out-of-area company that's | | | | You're not in the business of buying clicks, so don't |
| relocating people to your area. Google AdWords | | | | measure your AdWords campaign effectiveness by |
| allows you to show your advertisements to the | | | | the number of click-thrus you're receiving (and paying |
| entire world, or to a narrowly focused metropolitan | | | | for). Set up measurable conversion goals, such as: |
| area. Geographic targeting is extremely important if | | | | online orders received, new users registering on your |
| your clients can be defined this way. | | | | site, or downloading a free report. You'll probably |
| Look at your prospects from many different angles. | | | | value new orders received from your AdWords |
| Talk to past clients to really understand why they | | | | campaign much more than you will the number of |
| bought your product or service. Dig deep into their | | | | visitors hitting your site. The number of site visitors is |
| psyche. This will help you better define your offer | | | | exciting, but if they're not moving closer to doing |
| and the message you'll use to get people to want to | | | | business with you, you're throwing away your |
| learn more about it. Make sure your message | | | | hard-earned money. |
| resonates on an emotional or financial level. Here's an | | | | Once you're ready, begin building a list of keywords |
| example: let's say you're a wedding photographer | | | | and phrases you think your ideal prospects will use in |
| looking to grow your business. Does you business | | | | a search engine that would lead them to your site. |
| offer "wedding photography services", or "the | | | | You should use a spreadsheet or word processor to |
| opportunity to capture and preserve one of the | | | | quickly copy and paste words and phrases, in every |
| most important days of your prospect's life"? Your | | | | variation possible. Include misspelled words. You'd be |
| offer should be valuable in your prospect's heart or | | | | surprised how using misspelled words can place you |
| wallet. | | | | higher in the search engine's results at a fraction of |
| Does your website support your business? If you're | | | | the correctly spelled word! Google has some great |
| serving a market niche, your website should speak to | | | | tools for generating keywords. Create as many |
| this niche. If your customers are in the agricultural | | | | keywords as you can, but make sure they are |
| business, don't show pictures of skyscrapers and | | | | relevant to what you're offering. |
| cityscapes on your site. Your clients will appreciate | | | | Have a budget in mind. Google allows you to specify |
| seeing pictures of farms & trucks and will | | | | your daily advertising budget limit as well as how |
| probably feel comfortable with green & yellow | | | | much you're willing to offer for each keyword |
| colors (John Deere). If you're trying to sell a product | | | | click-thru. Make sure you take time to really think |
| online, make sure the product your client sees when | | | | through how much you want to invest. If it's $500 a |
| they land on your site is the product you have | | | | month that's less than $17.00 per day. If you have |
| featured in your online advertisement. This sounds | | | | several hundred keywords and they are all bidding in |
| simple enough, but you'd be surprised how many | | | | the $1.00 range, you should receive 17 click-thrus to |
| sites ignore this basic principle. | | | | your site each day (in an ideal world). If you have a |
| Does your website have the tools necessary to | | | | small budget, consider placing your bids on the |
| measure the effectiveness of your online campaign? | | | | keywords that are most relevant to your business. |
| Most of the template website providers offer some | | | | Monitor and adjust. Monitor your campaign and adjust |
| sort of tool for analyzing website traffic. If your | | | | it until you start seeing the traffic you want. This |
| website provider doesn't offer a traffic analyzer, or if | | | | process is as much art as it is science. Online |
| you have a custom-designed site, ask your site | | | | advertising is an incredible tool for increasing sales. |
| provider to install Google Analytics® - it's free, | | | | The beauty of Google AdWords - you can put your |
| easy to install, and provides a very clear picture | | | | foot in the water to test it out before diving in. If |
| about your website's traffic. Website traffic tells you | | | | you feel like your in over you head, get some |
| a lot about the behavior of your site visitors - how | | | | professional advice. There's a whole industry out |
| many users are visiting your site, what hours of the | | | | there built around optimizing your AdWords campaign. |
| day they're visiting, what geographic areas they're | | | | |