Google AdWords Beginner s Guide

Transcription

1 Google AdWords Beginner s Guide Learn how to: - Start your first campaign - Manage your budget - Op mise your ads by Dave Robertson - Internet Marke ng Consultant - WSI

2 Welcome! Google AdWords is an extremely useful tool for online marke ng, but it can be quite daun ng. Terms like CPC and CPM are hardly self-explantory, and whilst Google do provide online documenta on, it could be a lot be er. That s where this guide comes in. We re going to deal with the process of se ng up your first Google AdWords account and campaign, step by step. We will cover: How to register How to choose your keywords How to manage your budget How to op mise your campaign How to review your campaign over me You ll discover that Google AdWords is a great pla orm for adver sing on; easy to use and cost-effec ve. But why use AdWords in the first place? As you can see on the right, Google has around 84% of the search market - a huge total. It s just not worth adver sing elsewhere. Google is arguably the most global commercial website ever built. John Yunker, Chief Analyst, Byte Level Research It s got the biggest market share by a long way, and it s the most familiar pla orm and brand name to users. So now we ve established that, let s get stuck in!

3 How does AdWords work? Google AdWords works on a Pay Per Click model. This means that you only pay Google if a user clicks on your ad. This ensures be er quality leads and means AdWords can be very cost-effec ve. But what factors influence whether my ad appears? 1. Whether the ad matches the keywords you ve specified 2. Whether you have bidded compe vely with other adver sers 3. Your advert s Quality Score Keywords: The system works by requiring you to specify the search terms you want to adver se against. For example, a plumbing firm may want to adver se using the keywords boilers or hea ng. Bidding: When you set up your campaign you get to choose how much you want to bid for each click. You can set a flat budget per me period, so the system will choose how much to bid, or you can choose an individual set of bids. Quality Score: This is your advert s overall score, determined by Google. It s based on the principle of relevancy. Simply put, Google will display higher quality ads higher up the rankings and will charge less for a click. A higher quality ad is defined as: an which uses relevant ad text and keywords and links to the most relevant landing page possible. The landing page the page of your website the advert will link to. For more about relevancy and qualty score, visit: h p://bit.ly/peqyyb

4 Ge ng Started To get the ball rolling, the first thing you need to do is to sign up for a Google Account (if you don t already have one). When we refer to Google Account, we mean exactly that - an account used for accessing Google s services. It is not the same as a Google Mail account, but you can use your Google Mail address if you have one. Go to h ps:// and register for a Google account. Bear in mind this will become your Google AdWords login, so choose details you re happy with. The Google Accounts home page Once you have your Google Account set up, or if you already had one, head to h p://adwords.google.com. Here you can begin se ng up your Google AdWords account and campaign.

5 Registering for AdWords The Google AdWords home page Let s get registered for AdWords. The first few steps involve inpu ng various contact details and are quite simple. Sign in with your Google Account and follow the steps. Se ng up your AdWords account Once you have entered all your informa on, you might need to verify your account. Once that s done, let s proceed to se ng up your first campaign!

6 Se ng up your first campaign You ll see the following screen: Se ng up your AdWords account The AdWords Dashboard Click Create your first campaign. Here you ll be greeted with a page of fields, looking something like the below: The first step

7 Se ng up your first campaign Fill in the informa on in the relevant fields. Each field has a p, so if you re not sure what to enter, just click the ques on mark. A range of the fields Advanced Se ngs Here you get fine control over various se ngs, such as start and end dates, geographical area and demographic targe ng. Leave it if you don t need to change anything. Once you ve completed all this informa on, we ll move onto crea ng your first ad!

8 Wri ng your adverts Now we re at the crea ve bit. It s me to write your adverts. Se ng up your AdWords account Wri ng your first advert We re going to write a text ad, as they re the simplest and cheapest right now. Text ads have five main parts: Headline - the ad headline. Will appear blue and underlined. Descrip on line 1 - first line of the descrip on. Descrip on line 2 - second line of the descrip on. Display URL - the web address the ad physically displays Des na on URL - the web address the display URL points to You should focus on making your ads as eye-catching and interes ng as you can. It s temp ng to go for the obvious - ie Plumbers in Leeds, Hea ng and Boiler Repairs, but you need to give users a reason to click on your ad. Think about offering a discount, or explaining the benefits of a product, or adver sing a new service you offer. Just like with all forms of adver sing, it s about sparking interest in your subject.

9 A note about ads Google has to approve your ads before they can go live. They have the following restric ons: An advert that Google judges breaks one or more of these guidelines will be rejected. But be sensible when you re wri ng your ad and you ll be fine. Adding your keywords As we explained earlier, keywords are a vital part of Google AdWords. They control the relevancy your ad has to the searches people are conduc ng. In the next part of the setup process, you get to specify what keywords you want to use. The keywords sec on

10 Adding your keywords...con nued You need to think about what words people will use when searching for the services or products you provide. For example, someone searching for plumbing services might search for: boiler repair hea ng installa on leaking pipe bathroom installa on new boiler emergency plumbers water leak Google provides you with some sugges ons, which can be found on the right. You can easily add their sugges ons by clicking add. It s a good idea to develop your own though - and this is where Google s keyword tool comes in. This tool will generate keywords based on your sugges ons. Google s keyword sugges ons The keyword tool can be accessed here: h p://bit.ly/nzp9qf It will give you more data if you re signed in to your Google Account, so make sure you are before proceeding. Google s free keyword tool

11 The keyword tool The tool is easy to use. Just enter a few keywords of your own and click search. The tool will then produce a ra of related terms. You can easily add these terms to your campaign by selec ng and clicking add to campaign, or you can export them to spreadsheet and import the spreadsheet into AdWords. Match types Results of Google s keyword tool Google gives you control over the format you want your keywords to be in. These controls are called match types and come in four types: keyword = broad match (default) keyword = match exact phrase [keyword] = match exact term only -keyword = don t match this term If you qualify your keywords in any of the la er three ways, your keywords will be restricted to opera ng in that way only. For example, qualifying plumbers leeds as plumbers leeds means that you will go from appearing whenever someone searches Google using terms including plumbers leeds, to only appearing when someone searches for exactly the phrase plumbers leeds.

12 The next step A er you ve wri en your adverts and selected your keywords, you need to set up your billing informa on. Your ads will not run un l you specify this informa on. What about VAT? For Bri sh users, Google does charge VAT on AdWords but not if you specify that you re a VAT-registered business. Otherwise, they will charge you at the Irish VAT rate. Google allows you to pay either manually, where you must create a prepayment balance and money is deducted un l it runs out, or automa cally, where you are billed every month for the clicks you get. Once you have entered your billing informa on and accepted the terms and condi ons, you re good to go! Next we ll deal with managing your campaign.

13 Managing your campaign Congratula ons on se ng up your first campaign! Now we re going to look at campaign management. The screen below is your campaign dashboard. AdWords campaign dashboard From here, you can manage every aspect of your campaign - from your adverts to your budget. You can also see a graph of your clicks per day over a certain me period. If you want to edit any se ngs, it s pre y simple. Just click the corresponding tab. AdWords will also create recommenda ons for your campaign. You don t have to implement these, but they can be really helpful.

14 Op mising your campaign It s important to realise that to get the best results, you need to constantly evaluate and update your campaign based on the data you accrue. That way, you ll stay ahead of the compe on and get the most out of your campaign that you can. Using the interface, you can easily add new ads, edit current ads, change keywords and modify your budget. Experiment with the op ons. If an ad isn t performing well, ask yourself why. Does it have relevant keywords? (Are they as good as they could be?) Is the ad well wri en? (simple, eye-catching, easy to read) Do you have an appropriate budget? (is Google telling you you are missing clicks due to budget?) Google Analy cs If you ve not already go it installed on your site, Google Analy cs can provide a great deal of informa on on site visitors and content. It s a great companion to AdWords, and can be ac vated from within AdWords itself. Just go to Repor ng and Tools > Google Analy cs. Se ng up Google Analy cs

15 Se ng up Google Analy cs Se ng up Google Analy cs is quite easy, but you will need access to your website s source code. If you don t know what this is, don t worry - we can do it for you! Once Google Analy cs is running correctly, you can see what balance of visitors your site is ge ng from AdWords, vs. other sources. This means you can easily balance your marke ng budget depending on which benefits you re ge ng from where. A screenshot from Google Analy cs You can find out more about Google Analy cs at: h p:// analy cs/ Congratula ons! You re running your own AdWords campaign!

16 This all sounds great...but......i don t have the me to do it myself. Don t worry - WSI can help! We offer a package specifically tailored to Local Search, ideal for businesses wan ng to market to local customers. Set Up Lis ngs on Google Places, Yahoo Lis ngs and Bing Business Lis ng Center Lis ngs on review sites Yelp and Qype Each search lis ng completed with the full range of informa on; e.g. name, business details, photos, videos, opening hours and verified (content supplied by you) Google AdWords setup and keyword research Google Analy cs tracking code installa on and set up of business goals for the campaign Monthly Ad campaign management, all lis ngs and adverts op mised as required (NB price excludes actual ad spend) Analy cs Reports showing effec veness of sales campaign & recommenda ons to improve 250 setup, 150 pcm (+VAT) We take care of it all for you!

17 Any ques ons? If you have any ques ons about this guide, or you re interested in the packages we offer, get in touch below: Phone: (+44) Website: You can also contact us or follow us on Facebook and Twi er. Any comments or ques ons appreciated!