How to Do a Great PPC Google Campaign

You can buy Google PPC advertising for just pennies per click!

If you need to get visitors to your website and have some money to spend on advertising, there's no better way than to use the Google PPC program. With Google Adwords, you can put relevant ads in front of Google users when they are searching for information. Your ad will appear on the right side of the search results page. You pay anywhere from a few cents up to a dollar each time someone clicks on your ad.

Difficulty:

Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need

• Google Adwords Account
• Credit card
• Website to promote
• List of relevant keywords

1. Sign up for Google adwords (see Resources). You’ll need a Google account to sign up. The account is free to use but you’ll need to enter your credit card information to use the system and start your ads running.

2. Be aware that the biggest downside to a campaign is that the costs can get expensive pretty fast if you don't know what you are doing. Set a budget for your advertising of $5 to $10 per day, depending on your needs. This way you will be able to get to know the system without spending too much money. Under the “My Account” tab on your Adwords Dashboard you can add to your prepaid spending limit by clicking “Make a Payment.” You can also set a budget for each ad campaign. Once you reach that daily budgeted amount, your ad won't be shown anymore on that day.

3. Each website that you are promoting will have its own “campaign.” Each campaign can be split up into ad groups based on the keywords that you are using. Find relevant keywords to your product by using the Google keyword tool available online (see Resources). Enter a phrase related to your website and both of these tools will give you related phrases that are popular for your product. Write down the top ten to fifteen on each list to get you started.

4. Select keywords that are popular but that still leave room for you to compete in the marketplace. Take your list of keywords to the main Google search engine and enter each phrase, one at a time. Pay attention to how many Google Adwords ads appear on the right hand side of the screen. In order to be seen, you’ve got to be able to land your ad somewhere in the top eight to eleven ads. If there are more than two or three pages of ad competition, chances are your ad won’t be seen by many people. Narrow down your keyword list based on competition.

5. Build an ad group around each of these keywords after evaluating the competition. Using the Google keyword tool add four to five additional keywords related to each of the keywords in your core list. Each of these additional keywords may have less people looking for them each month but they are still worth pursuing. For example, if you're going to create an ad based on the keyword “sports medicine degrees” you might as well use that same ad for "sports medicine degree online." Even though the second term gets less searches, the costs per click will be lower and you'll get more mileage from your ad.

How to Create a Winning ad for Your Campaigns

1. Know that the headline for your ad should use the core keyword for your ad group. The reason being is that Google will automatically put relevant keywords in bold, which can encourage people to look at your ad. To keep things simple you could just use the keyword by itself as your headline.

2. Consider that Google Adwords gives you two lines to create your ad. The first line should be a benefit of the product or service is available on your website. A benefit is something that a customer will achieve by buying the product or service (freedom, happiness and so forth). The second line should be a feature of the product or service. This is your chance to share the nuts and bolts of what your website has to offer. For example:Sports Medicine DegreesUse your passion for sports with a new careerSearchable database of all accredited programs

3. Be aware that the last line of your ad will be the URL for your website. Your website needs to be your own, and not an affiliate link. Google Adwords no longer accepts ads that have affiliate links in them.

Effectively Manage Your Adwords campaigns

1. Consider that Google Adwords will suggest a minimum bid amount per keyword for your campaigns. If you bid this minimum amount you’ll be guaranteed the last spot in the ads list. However, most people want to be higher than last place. Use the keyword bid research tool at www.spyfu.com to see what people are paying for clicks. This way you can adjust your bids to make sure your ad is seen.

2. Know that there are comprehensive tracking elements within the Google Adwords system that will help you make your ads more effective. Under the “conversion tracker” section on your Campaign Management dashboard you can track how people use your website once they arrive there.

3. Add new keywords frequently to your campaign and remove the keywords that aren't working in each ad group. The Campaign Optimizer tool in the Campaign Management section can help point out where you need to make changes.

Tips & Warnings

• The more bidders there are for keywords, the more expensive the clicks will be.

• More bidders means that you will need to work harder to make your ad stand out.

• Study successful ads in your keyword groups and take steps to emulate their style.

• Start slow with just a few ad groups per campaign. Once you've gotten the hand of the Adwords system, you can expand your advertising.

• Keep tweaking and perfecting your Adwords methods so that you get the most for your money.

• Don't go overboard with your bidding. Although the top ad spots get a lot of hits, not all of those hits convert well. if you're in a competition heavy ad group, aim for landing halfway through the list of ads. This way you'll get plenty of traffic put keep your costs down.

• Don't leave your ads alone once you've created them.

• Use the split testing option to tweak your ads until they perform the way that you want them to.

Resources

• Google Adwords
• Wordtracker's Free Keyword Research Tool
• Google's Keyword Research Tool
• SpyFu's Keyword Bidding Tool