In your quest for digital marketing excellence, you may have heard a term floating around – AdWords. What is it and how does it work?
If you’ve searched anything on Google before, you’ve probably seen AdWords in action whether you realized it or not. When you search a few keywords on Google, they usually trigger a specific advertisement. It’ll pop up as some of the top ads in the search results or on the right-hand side with the heading “Sponsored Links.” These are the results of AdWords.
AdWords is a service offered by Google and is how businesses can display ads on Google and Google’s advertising network. But how does it work for you as a business owner? And what’s the advantage?
First, you’d set up an advertising budget; with AdWords, you’re only charged when someone clicks on your ad. Next, you’d decide which of the keywords consumers search through Google you want to use in your advertisement. This is a very important step as AdWords focuses on these keywords.
Now, here’s where it gets interesting. When a consumer begins typing certain words into their Google search engine (which just so happen to be the same keywords used in your advertisement), AdWords knows to pull up your business’s advertisement! If the consumer clicks on the ad, they are taken directly to your website. The benefit of AdWords is that businesses can get easy access to new consumers.
While AdWords users do pay per click, there are going to be competitors vying for the same ads and ad spots.
This is where the price per click can vary, and a “quality score” is used to determine who gets an ad and how much it costs. Quality score is determined by how relevant your ad is to the browser and how closely it matches the words they’ve searched. You can improve your quality score by making sure that your ad leads directly to a relevant page and your ads keywords are on brand.
Now, there are some who may dissuade business owners from using AdWords.
If you’re a smaller company, it can get really expensive to pay per click! And those clicks you’re paying for don’t guarantee a sell. It just guarantees they’ll make it to your site.
But there are others who will tout AdWords’ success and ultimately their own. Whether you decide to use their services or not, the takeaway message with AdWords is that keywords are important. This same principle applies to your own website and article search engine optimization.
If there is anything you can do to increase the success of your digital marketing, it’s to take a step back and evaluate your brand and product. Once you feel that you have a clear vision of what those are, come up with a short list of key terms that fit your objective and you can’t go wrong.
Because those ads redirect to your website, if you decide to go the AdWords route it’s also a good idea to step up your web design so that it further draws users in and is a pleasant experience for them.
