Attracting More Customers and Clients with Google AdWords

Are you ready to start instantly attracting more customers and clients?

Unlike other advertising platforms, Google AdWords has the power to start working right away. That’s why, when it comes to paid search ad spend, Google dominates with a massive 30%+ of the total worldwide market.

As a small business owner, the main thing you want is more customers coming through your doors. Digital Marketing can be overwhelming, but it’s something companies cannot ignore today.

Chances are that you’ve tried Social Media, Search Engine Optimization, Video Marketing, and many other marketing avenues. Or maybe you’re like millions of companies who have yet to tap into the power of online marketing.

All of these methods are great, but they can take some time to start getting results.  AdWords, on the other hand, can provide immediate results if it’s done correctly. Otherwise, you risk losing money along the way, which puts you even more behind the curve.

If you’re new to AdWords, or been thinking about using it, it can appear to be quite daunting at first. There’s a lot that goes into setting up good campaigns that can help keep your business afloat.

However, first, you need to know what this platform is and why it’s so beneficial to businesses across the globe.

In this report, we will review this this fantastic advertising tool and explain why it is a great resource for boosting income and profits…

What is Google AdWords?

AdWords is Google’s very own advertising service, designed to display paid ads not only within its renowned search engine, but also within its entire advertising network.

Allowing you to create a text ad focusing on a specific keyword or phrase, the search engine then displays it whenever a user carries out a related search.

For example, an ad for a pet store in Orlando, Florida, might focus on “Orlando pet supplies”. Whenever a user searches for Orlando pet supplies, your ad will show up as a sponsored link.

The great thing about these ads? You only pay if a user clicks on the link within your ad, rather than paying to have it displayed. This makes it a very cost-effective solution, further enhanced by the fact you can also set your own budget.

Benefits of Google AdWords for Local Businesses

When your potential customers are looking for a local product, service, or business, they’re likely going to search for it on Google. They are looking for YOU and AdWords will help them CONNECT with you.

For a small business, Google AdWords can be a hugely successful method of driving traffic, marketing your product or service, and ultimately providing an increase in sales and revenue.

Why?

1. Reach Your Targeted Audience At The Right Time – Grabs people who are looking specifically for what you have to offer WHILE they are searching for it. To put this into perspective, Google’s search engine processes:
   • 3 MILLION searches per second
   • 100 BILLION searches per month
   • 2 TRILLION searches per year

This proves just how much consumers take to the web to find information these days. Therefore, your business should use as many digital means as possible to connect with this massive audience.

2. Immediacy – Unlike organic search, PPC ads can show results rather quickly. So it’s a fast way to get calls and foot traffic coming into your business. Your campaign could be live in as little as a day or two so it can get things moving pretty quickly.
3. Localization – It gives you the ability to target people in a specific location AND can even show your location to users. This is perfect for businesses that need to target prospects in a specific geographic area.
4. Highly-Targeted – In addition to localization, you can create different types of targeting for your ads, including mobile targeting, language targeting, time targeting, remarketing, and more.
5. Better Website Visibility & Traffic – While organic search engine optimization (SEO) tends to be the “slower” way to get a website to rank higher in the search engine results, AdWords can give your site more attention much faster. So it can help you meet short-term goals when it comes to getting more website visitors, traffic, and conversions (as long as your site is properly ready to convert).
6. It’s Cost Effective – Contrary to popular believe, AdWords is not expensive when done effectively. you only pay when an interested person clicks on your ads, so as long as your ads are targeted properly, you will see an impressive return on your investment (ROI).
7. You Control Your Budget – You can spend as little or as much as you want on your campaigns, allowing you to always work within your budget. A larger budget will yield better results, but setting it up will be time intensive. However, once everything has been set up you can run efficient campaigns in about an hour per week or less.
8. It’s Flexible – You can start, stop, pause, and test your campaigns at any time within AdWords, so it is extremely flexible. For instance, if you want to try different search terms, just pause your campaign and re-start it whenever you want with your new keyword phrases.
9. Run Multiple Campaigns – If you have different products, services, or marketing objectives, you can run a lot of different ad campaigns at the same time – you are not limited to just one. This allows you to fine-tune your targeting, perform in-depth testing, and really connect with those who are looking for what you have to offer.
10. Easily Measure Results – With AdWords, you can measure every aspect of your campaign, including number of clicks, number of impressions, click through rates, conversion rates and more. This is unheard of with traditional advertising methods, such as newspaper ads, TV ads, and others.
11. Competitive Advantage – Running AdWords campaigns give you the advantage over your competitors, most of which have not even tapped into this profitable marketing technique. Your business will show up high on the search results pages, which means you will get more clicks.

Furthermore:

• PPC visitors are 50% more likely to purchase something than organic visitors
• Search ads can increase brand awareness by 80%
• 98% of searchers choose a business that is on page 1 of the results
• Businesses make an average of $2 in revenue for every $1 they spend on AdWords

How Google AdWords Works

So how does it work? Well, it’s basically a bidding system…

It starts when a user types in a search phrase. Google determines which ads show up related to the phrase, by holding an auction. Everyone who has placed a bid on a chosen keyword, has a chance to have their ad displayed.

Here’s a snapshot: The ads that show up at the top of the Google search results page with the word “ad” above them are generated from AdWords.

Note About Google Maps Local Listings:

Google has now decided to change one of the Local Map 3-Pack listings a paid ad spot, meaning that there will only be 2 listings that rank naturally in the 3-pack.  Therefore, if you are currently holding one of these listing spots – or want to – it’s going to be even more difficult to rank there since there are less ranking spots available. Google Maps has more than one billion users and people visit 1.5 billion destinations based on their Google searches. So AdWords can help you connect with even more potential local customers who may be looking for what you have to offer.

How Ads Rank

Google determines how the ads show up using a process known as Ad Rank. This system chooses which ads show up 1st, 2nd, or even at all.

So what does it take into account when determining ad placement? Well, there’s three main factors it looks into…

1. Bid price – Google does give preference to those who place a higher bid amount. However, there are a number of factors to consider when determining how much you should spend. It’s worth looking at the lifetime value or LVT, along with the conversion rate.

Lifetime value means what you will approximately get for the sale taking into account how long the customer is likely to stick with you. For example, a plumber will see a client just one time, whereas a physical therapist will see them over and over. So, if the lifetime value is high, you should consider spending more.

Example:  A conversion rate of 3% and Lifetime Value of $100 would work out as… 03×100 =$3 – this is your starting bid price.

2. Quality Score – While most marketers focus solely on bid price, it’s actually the quality score that’s going to have the biggest impact on where your ad shows up. In fact, it can even prevent your ad from being shown at all. So how is your quality score worked out?

A lot goes into this. Basically it is an estimate of the quality of your ads, keywords and landing pages. Your keywords need to be relevant, your landing needs to be high quality and the ad itself needs to be written to a high standard and remain relevant.

3. Ad extensions – These include things you can add to the ads that you’re running. The more extensions you have, the higher your quality score will be. We will discuss ad extensions in more detail later in this report.

While all three of the factors above are considered by Ad Rank, some are definitely more important than others.

The quality score is the most important factor. The higher your quality score is, the less you will have to spend on the same keywords.

What is Cost-Per-Click?

Cost-per-click (CPC) is the amount you will pay, as an advertiser, each time someone clicks on your AdWords ad.  This cost is determined by numerous factors, such as your quality score, maximum bids, a and competitiveness of your keywords.

How Quality Score Affects Your Bids

A quality score is a metric assigned by Google to determine how relevant your ad is to online searchers. Getting a higher quality ad score can lead to much lower prices and better ad positions. So how does the quality scoring work?

Google scores on a scale of 1-10. Multiple factors determine your score such as:

• How targeted and specific the ad is
• The keywords used
• Quality of the landing page

Google’s benchmark score is a 5. So if you manage to get a 10, your cost per click (CPC) can be discounted by up to 50%. If you have a low quality score of 1 however, your cost per click can be increased by as much as 400%.

So, from that you can clearly see that someone with a high quality score can be paying significantly less for the same amount clicks – Increasing their ROI.

Getting a great quality score will therefore help you to get an edge over your competitors in AdWords results.

How to Set Up a Basic AdWords Account

Setting up an AdWords account is easy and can be done in 3 simple steps…

1. Sign up – Head over to the AdWords site and follow the simple steps to get your account created (https://www.google.com/adwords/).
2. Set up basic preferences – Once the account has been created, you’ll next need to set various preferences. For example, you’ll need to select which time zone and currency you prefer.
3. Confirm billing information – Once your preferences have been set, you’ll need to add your billing info.

Here you’ll also need to choose whether you want payments to be made automatically or manually. The main difference is with automatic payments you can pay after clicks have been attained, whereas with manual payments you pay for them in advance.

You can also choose whether you want the payments taken from a credit card or bank account. If you’re eager to get started right away, a credit card would be the better option as it takes a little time for Google to verify a bank account.

Important: After signing up, Google will recommend AdWords Express. Don’t choose that. Instead, opt for “Switch to AdWords”.

AdWords Express is a product google put together in order to make it “super easy” for local businesses to run a campaign. The company describes it as a “set and forget” system, where it does all the work so you don’t have to. You don’t need a website and you only pay once you receive calls.

Sounds great right?

But…This is not the most efficient or best way to run AdWords.

Downsides to AdWords Express

There are numerous reasons why AdWords Express should be avoided.

The fact that the keywords are chosen automatically is a major downside.

All keywords are set to “broad match” which is ultimately going to affect the relevance of your ad. It’s much better to use other types of matches, as you want to be able to weed out any bad keywords.

You also can’t set negative keywords. With a regular AdWords account, you can set it to never show an ad for a specific phrase, which gives you a lot more control over who sees it. Without this feature, you will likely end up paying for too many clicks that are not closely targeted. Paying for clicks that will not lead to a sale will only drain your budget.

Another massive downside is there are no tracking options. This means you have no real way to know if the ad is working.

So, while it may seem like a great option initially, as you can see AdWords Express could cause a lot of problems for your reputation and your budget! A regular AdWords account is the best option.

Creating Your First Text Ad in AdWords

Now you’re ready to create your first ad, but before you do, there are some things you can do beforehand to improve its success rate.

• Create a list of keywords – They are extremely important in the creation of a successful ad. These are the list of “search phrases or terms” that your target audience is most likely to enter when searching for your type of product or service. We will explore keywords in more detail in the next section.

• Study competitor ads – Your competitors will have likely already spent a large amount of time and money finding the best keywords. Why not learn from their mistakes and see exactly which keywords they’re now choosing to focus on?
• See it from an audience point of view – Think about what would intrigue a customer to click on your ad. What are they most likely going to be searching for?

Once you get these basics down and are ready to actually create your ads, here are some tips to help:

1. Create a strong headline – The headline must be a maximum of 25 characters. It’s perhaps the most important part of your ad and is responsible for grabbing the user’s attention – no pressure then!
2. Create a short description – The first line of the description should give the user a compelling reason to click on the ad. It helps to think about what you would want to see if you were searching for your product. Avoid making promises you can’t deliver – remember that clicks don’t necessarily equal sales!
3. Add a call to action – In the second description line, provide a strong call to action. This is just as important as the headline. It is important to tell viewers exactly what you want them to do after viewing your ad. A good example of a good call to action could “Call us today for your 20% discount” or “Call us today for your free consultation.”
4. Don’t forget your site link – The whole purpose of the ad is to direct visitors to your website. When entering your site link into the display URL box, avoid adding “http”. Just using a www link will look a lot more attractive. There’s a separate destination URL link which you’ll also need to fill in.
5. Preview the ad – After creating the ad, always preview it so you know exactly how it will be displayed. This gives you the opportunity to see if anything needs changing before it goes live. It’s also a chance to check the grammar is ok and there are no errors throughout.

How to Choose the Right Keywords for AdWords

Now we’ve reached a crucial part of the process – keywords.

Your keyword list is critical. The right list can make the difference between success and failure. Therefore, you must build the most efficient and focused keyword list in order to see the best results.

We mentioned this earlier, but now’s a great time to remind you to avoid using broad match when setting up your campaign. You might be inclined to do it in order to get more clicks, but it will not work. All you’re going to do is waste money and let’s face it, that’s the last thing you want to do!

The more focused and targeted your keywords are, the more clicks that will result in a purchase.  If they’re too general, you will attract people who are not necessarily interested in what you’re selling and this will eat up your advertising budget.

Choosing The Right Keywords

So how do you come up with the best keywords? Well, if you’re new to AdWords the Google Keyword Planner can help!

The keyword planner is a 100% free tool, allowing you to search for specific keywords to see how well they typically perform. It also lets you compare multiple keyword lists and can even help you determine a competitive budget for your campaign.

Other great tips include…

Keep them specific – Targeted keywords are going to be the most successful. Try to come up with keywords that closely relate to your business.

If you run a legal firm for example, you’ll likely offer numerous services. Rather than creating one ad which targets all of your services, it would actually prove more effective if you created multiple ads for each of your services.

For instance, create one ad for a divorce attorney focusing on keywords all about divorce. Then create another for child support, using keywords relating to child support services.

The more specific your ad is, the better your campaigns will be.

Avoid single keywords – A good tip to ensure your keywords are as targeted and as effective as possible is to avoid using single words.

These tend to be the most competitive and general, meaning they will potentially attract a LOT of visitors. The trouble is, the majority of these visitors won’t convert, so you’ll end up paying much more initially because of the high demand of the keyword, along with wasting a lot of money on click-throughs that don’t lead to a sale.

Include local keywords – Adding local keywords is one way to make them super-relevant. Including zip codes and city names for example, is going to maximize targeting and also attract a much higher number of local customers.

If you combine this tip with the one above, you’ll make a lot more conversions. Here’s a good example…

A potential buyer searching for a cheap florist, might simply be browsing, or they may be interested in using one. So if you were a florist and you’d targeted the “cheap florist” keyword, you’d have a 50-50 chance of making a conversion.

If on the other hand, the potential buyer types in “Cheap florist Long Island NY”, there’s a good chance they’re looking to make a purchase. Therefore, the odds of making a conversion would increase drastically if you focused on these more specific keywords.

So, spending the majority of your budget focusing on location based keywords, will help you to show up for potential buyers who are looking to make a purchase at that very moment.

Setting Your AdWords Budget

One of the great things about AdWords is that it allows you to have complete control over your budget. You get to decide how much you want to spend and whether you want to set a limited daily budget.

Set your maximum budget at something that is affordable and comfortable for you – and never spend more than your visitors are worth.

If you notice your ad is doing particularly well, you can increase your spending on that particular campaign. Likewise, if a campaign isn’t doing too well, you can lower your spending or get rid of it completely.

Some experts recommend starting out with a budget of $20-$40 per day. However, it depends upon numerous factors and the key is to experiment and start out small while you figure out what works.

Getting the Most Out of AdWords Extensions

If you want your ads to gain maximum attention, it’s worth looking into AdWords Extensions. They’re especially effective when it comes to local business ads…

What do they do? Well, local extensions allow you to display your company’s address, phone number, business hours and ratings.

If a user is searching using their mobile, there’s also special buttons built in which allow them to call you directly from the ad. If they click on the ad, they’ll be able to view you on a map, find out more about your business and get directions if required.

These location extensions are therefore really useful if you want to encourage people to actually visit your store.

But do they work?

Absolutely. Ads for businesses which include local extensions see an average 10% increase in click-through rates.

In order to make your targeting more accurate, try to stick within a 10-mile radius of your location.

Many businesses make the mistake of choosing to cover an entire state, rather than their immediate area. While logically this will bring you more leads, it’s not going to deliver a high conversion rate.

If a customer finds you, but they’re based 50 miles away, they’re not going to be able to pop into your store. So, when choosing keywords and setting a location radius, keep them focused on your immediate area.

You can do this by going to the settings tab in your campaign. Next, select locations and click on Advanced Search to enter more specific areas.

Why Your Landing Pages Are KEY to AdWords

Of course, creating a killer ad is just the first challenge. Even if you manage to develop an attention grabbing ad with a high click-through rate, it’s not going to help if the landing page it’s leading to isn’t optimized.

In fact, your landing pages can literally make or break your AdWords campaigns.

What does this mean? Basically, your landing pages AND your ads need to have the same goal.

To start with, the headline of your landing page should match the headline of your ad. It also needs to contain a clear call to action, just like your ad. That way, visitors are going to know exactly what to do in order to make a purchase.

The page should be easy to navigate, simple understand and it should have a unique selling point. That selling point should be, yep you’ve guessed it – the same as the selling point of your ad.

Mobile and AdWords

According to Google, more than 1/2 of all web traffic is generated from smartphones and tablets. Furthermore, more than 1/3 of all mobile searches are location-based, meaning they’re searching for local products, services and businesses.  Studies show that location-based mobile searches are growing 50% faster than other types of mobile searches.

Based on this information, mobile and local go hand-in-hand, which is why Google’s emphasis on the mobile experience is so strong. So as you can imagine, mobile MUST be considered when it comes to paid ads in order to effectively reach your target audience.

• Mobile devices account for 52% of paid search clicks
• 70% of mobile searchers call a business directly from Google Search

When you create an ad with AdWords, it can automatically be viewed on a multitude of devices depending upon the group you select. However, it is recommended you create specific, targeted ads for mobile viewers, as well as separate ads for desktop viewers.

It’s also worth noting that there’s less space available to display ads on a mobile. So, you’ll need to pay a lot of attention to the quality of the ad if you want to ensure your ad shows up in the limited space.

Did you know there’s a brand new feature from Google which actually helps you target mobile-only users? The Call-Only Campaign makes it easy for potential customers to reach you directly over the phone as they complete their searches. More on this superb feature can be found below…

Why Call-Only AdWords Campaigns Are Recommended

Many local business owners stay up at night worried about one simple thing:  how to get their phones to ring.

One of the newest features offered by Google, call-only campaigns are becoming extremely popular with marketers and for good reason…

Local businesses looking to make more in-store conversions, can use the call-only campaign to achieve this goal. Allowing users to phone you directly, rather than diverting them to your website to find the phone number for your business, results in a much higher conversion rate.

To put it into figures, it’s estimated that 19 out of 20 users who click through to a website on an ad, won’t make a purchase. However, those who actually make a call to a business are estimated to be worth three times that figure.

This is especially important for reaching more mobile users as 70% of mobile searches result in the user calling a business.

Tips For Increasing Call-Only Success

As with any AdWords campaign, there are a few tips you can keep in mind to boost your call-only campaign success rate…

• Focus on the right keywords (we can’t stress them enough). Think about your target audience and why they would be calling you. Then, make sure you include keyword terms and phrases that will pull in the searchers who are most likely to call you up.
• Create ad copy that draws in your target audience – enough that they will feel comfortable enough to call you up. Answer questions in your ad that they don’t even know they have, such as how much does it cost, can they trust you, etc.
• Making use of ad scheduling is one of the best tips you can follow. After all, you only want to receive calls when you can actually take them. If your ad is permanently displayed, you risk receiving calls out of hours, missing out on a potential lead and chance to make a sale.

Using Ad Scheduling, you can choose what times and days your ad shows up, ensuring you’re always available to take the call. It also gives you the opportunity to better control your budget. For example, you can spend more on ads during times that produce the most leads.

Measure Your Results with Google AdWords

There are a lot of benefits that come from advertising with AdWords, but the ability to track your results is definitely one of the best.

As any good marketer knows, the key to advertising success is tracking and analyzing it to see how its performing. AdWords comes with a LOT of customizable options and allows you to track the following:

• How much traffic the ad has delivered to your site
• Your ROI
• Conversions and sales
• Brand awareness

Those are the more general tracking options. You can also delve further to see how your keywords are performing and what time of day is proving more lucrative for your ad.

The tracking opportunities are endless and make a massive difference to your chance of success.

Tips for Keeping AdWords Simple

Let’s be honest, AdWords can be overwhelming when you’re first starting out. However, the good news is there are ways to keep it simple…

1. Start out with 1-2 campaigns – When you’re just starting out, it’s recommended you focus on just 1-2 campaigns. If you have too many running at once, you’re not going to be able to track them all effectively.
2. Consider a shared budget – If you are running more than one campaign, a shared budget can save you a lot of time.

Instead of having to continuously monitor each campaign, AdWords will do it for you, automatically sharing the budget between the campaigns to produce the biggest ROI.

3. Don’t be afraid to experiment – The best way to learn about AdWords is to experiment! Start off really small and figure out which keywords work best for your campaign.

By only investing a little of your budget into your first few ads, you’ll get to learn the ropes and find out what works and what doesn’t without losing too much money.

Tips for Hiring an AdWords Manager

Many businesses are trying to run their own AdWords Campaigns and are not getting any results unfortunately.  In order to get the maximum return on your investment, you have to make sure that everything is done correctly. Since you’re probably already overwhelmed with the day to day operations of your business, it may be best to hire a professional to help manage and monitor your campaigns.

Here are some tips to help you choose the RIGHT AdWords Manager to avoid losing even MORE money on poor campaigns, as well as fees paid to your manager.

• Make sure they are qualified, knowledgeable and experienced when it comes to setting up and managing AdWords. If they’re a Google Partner, meaning they’ve passed exams to prove themselves, that’s even better.
• Make sure they stay on top of AdWords changes and added features. We all know that Google changes things often, so this is a good question to ask.
• Make sure they understand your company goals and objectives before just jumping into setting up campaigns. They need to ask detailed questions about your target audience, locations you want to target, keywords you want to use, your budget, and what you want to achieve with your campaigns overall.
• Make sure they discuss how they will measure, monitor, and tweak your campaigns going forward. They need to monitor things on a regular basis and make changes when necessary.
• Make sure they will provide you with monthly performance information so you know what’s going on and how well your ads are performing at all times.