Getting Traffic With Google Adwords

If you use Google to search the internet then you may find that your search results include "Sponsored Links" (on the right hand side of the search results page). If you click on any of the Sponsored links, the advertiser that placed the ad you clicked must pay Google for that click. If the advertiser is you, you are the one that pays. The price that you would pay depends on how much you have bid on the keywords used to generate the ad. This marketing tactic is called Google Adwords.

In addition to the ads being displayed with the search results, Google allows owners of websites and Blogs to display the same ads as contextual ads. Contextual refers to content that relates to the subject of your web page. This system is called Google Adsense. Each time a visitor clicks on an ad Google pays the owner of the website for that click. If you have traffic going to your web site and you display the Google Adsense Ads on a page and someone clicks an ad, you make money.

Note that Google Adwords and Google Adsense complement each other and are in fact, the inverse of each other.

Google Adwords Pay Per Click is a good way to get quick targeted traffic to your website.

Because you are paying for an ad promoting your site or affiliate link, those that click your ad will be directed to your site. The efficiency of your ad (click through rate or CTR) will depend on the ad copy and the keywords. The keywords that you have in the ads that are searched for dictate when your ad is displayed.

A problem that I see crop up time and time again is when people choose their keywords before they find their niche market. Many people that get into PPC advertising set up a campaign, set their CPC's high, add a truck load of keywords that they think will convert, and then begin to research the product that there trying to sell. This is all wrong!

It is very important the you seek out your market before you find a product to promote to them. Try going on forums or visiting newsgroups and focus groups… see what’s hot, what people are having problems with or complaining about and looking for a solution to -- and then deliver a product to these people.

Lets look at it from a different angle. If you have a stand that sells pizza in a demographic where everyone likes to eat only Chinese, you are not going to sell many pizzas, no matter how delicious. The same goes for online promotions, if you are promoting the wrong products to people or trying to sell to people who simply are not hungry to buy, they are not going to purchase from you.

So what’s the lesson? Focus on market research before promoting a product. Spend time to learn your audience, what they buy, why they buy, and then look at what fellow affiliates are doing. This will give you a great starting point before you jump into the "deep end".

TECHNIQUES TO IMPROVE YOUR GOOGLE ADWORDS

The following tips will help you to optimize your ads, increase click through rate, reduce advertising costs and maximize return on investment in one go:

Keeping Track On Your ROI (Return on investment)

This is one statistic that you really need to know. You need to know where your conversions are coming from on a keyword level. Detailed knowledge on this will seriously reduce your advertising costs which into increases your overall profit. Google now provides a useful service from within your Adwords account called 'Analytics' which will provide with this vital information.

How to Improve ROI?

Conversion rates will need to be improved. This can be achieved by:

Traffic Quality – One of the major mistakes that new Adwords users make is bidding on to general a term. You need to narrow down your keywords. For example, instead of bidding on 'sports car' you may do better to try 'red convertible sports car'. If you can attract more targeted traffic you will have a better chance of converting them into actual sales.

Ad Copy – Try some simple split testing. Test the same ad, but with different headlines. Make sure you click the 'show ads equally' option within your account. This will be ongoing processes that will forces you to gradually write better performing ads.

Landing page – Do you have your own landing page?

If you are only direct linking to the merchants page then this will not apply to you, although landing page is something that you should be looking into.

If you do have a landing page you will need to constantly monitor and update. Are people clicking through to your merchant? If not then work must be done on the landing page to remedy this. Try improving your page headline, write better reviews, make links stand out more etc. Maybe you could offer them something free? The point of a landing page is to pre-sell the product to them before they even get to your link!

All of these may sound 'technical' to you if they're something you've never heard before. Good thing is, now you know about it, you can take advantage of Google Adwords to sell your own products or to make money online by promoting affiliate programs.

Reference for Google Adwords --> www.google.com/adwords

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