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You’re still not using Adwords? Seriously?

Internet Business Mastery readers – you guys are serious about business.  I know you are.  I talk to Jay and see how much time & money is invested in this community.  I’ve even met a few of you and I know that you’re talented, successful business owners.

But some of you still aren’t using Adwords.

Which kinda blows my mind.  A little.

What is Adwords?

It’s Google’s advertising system. You know those ads that show up on the top highlighted box and the right column when you do a Google search? Those ads are put there by businesses paying on a per-click basis for the ads. Prices vary depending on your industry and the keywords you’re trying to bid on.

How do I use Adwords?

Google has a 90 second video that will show you how to set up your account.

Before you set up your account and go nuts…

You are tracking your web traffic, right?

Please tell me yes.  It’s so easy to track the number of people who are coming to your website, as well as the amount of time they spend there and what they click on.  If you’re not doing that yet, then visit Google.com/analytics and set up your tracking software for free (yes, there are other options – if you don’t like Google try Stattracker or Woopra).

After you have tracking setup, you’ll need to do a little bit of research before you give Adwords your credit card.

Research, research, research

One of the biggest mistakes that Adwords newbies make is picking basic keywords that don’t really reflect their business.  Real estate agents pick ‘Real Estate,’ and Plumbers pick ‘Plumbing.’ Please don’t do this.  Can you imagine how many people are trying to compete on those words?

The easiest place to do research is the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordTool This is a free tool that you can use to do some research and see how much search traffic there is for certain keywords, and get suggestions for different variations of what people are typing in to Google to find what you do.

Other common problems for Adwords newbies:

I’m not getting enough clicks. You may not have your maximum budget set high enough.  If you’re only bidding $1 per click and your competition is bidding $2 – $3, then you’re not going to appear as high on the page. You also may not be bidding on the right keywords.  Go back to the research and make sure you’re targeting the right keywords.  Lastly, you may want to adjust your ad text to get the right catchy phrase to draw people in.

Uh, I got 5,712 clicks, but no sales. I can’t tell you how many client accounts I’ve looked at like this.  If you’re getting a lot of clicks but no sales, then you could be bidding on the wrong keywords.  Expensive mistake. Again, go back to the research and make sure you’re targeting the right searches. The other option is that your website sucks at closing sales.  I can drive a million people to your store, but if your salesperson can’t close the deal, you need a new salesperson (or you need to do more training).  Your website is your online salesperson.

Holy Cow! I spent a bajillion dollars! How did that happen? My favorite mistake, because it’s extremely common.  Turn off the Content Network.  That’s the setting that makes your ads appear in Gmail and other places that aren’t search engines. Stay away from the Content Network if you’re a newbie.  You’ll spend a lot of money and never see anything in return.

Even though Adwords is easy to set up, there is a lot to learn for new advertisers.  You can learn more yourself by visiting the Adwords Learning Center or you can hire an Adwords professional to help you (you could also tell Sterling & Jay to have me back to do another guest post).

I’d be really curious to read about your experiences with Adwords.  Has it been good?  Did it drain your credit card and leave you nothing?  Let us know in the comments below.

Cory Huff is an actor and web entrepreneur.  He fell into online marketing in 2004 when he was trying to get people to come see his shows.  Now he helps artists and small business owners with their search engine marketing and social media efforts.  You can contact him about freelance work at CoryHuff.com. He teaches artists how to sell art online at TheAbundantArtist.com.

This post is in: Adwords, Traffic Generation