Wanting to gain an immediate Internet presence, many business start-up companies use Google Adwords in order to draw traffic and customers to their websites.
Due to the time thresholds involved in launching and establishing a new website, it can be many months before the efforts of the business’ SEO strategy begins to bear fruits. Google Adwords essentially bypasses the time restrictive elements which suppresses websites seeking a good natural listing and allows new entrants to be placed at or near the top of the results page for any given search term.
What is Google Adwords?
Google Adwords is an advertising program where businesses pay to be seen. The setting up of a Google account is free and signing up is a simple process of entering the business details and a credit card from which advertising costs will be deducted, usually on a monthly basis.
The business then chooses keywords or search terms that are relevant to their products and services and decides how much it is willing to pay each time a customer clicks on their advert.
It is usually advisable to set a limit for each keyword or group of phrases so that the expenditure does not exceed that which the business can afford.
Logging in to the Google Adwords accounts gives a display of the activity, the amount spent and the cost on a per click basis.
Tracking Advertising Results
When using a Google Adwords account, businesses will no doubt want to know just how effective this form of advertising is. Tracking the results of the advertisements can be accomplished by entering HTML code at the web pages that are typically the first and last pages in the purchasing cycle. In reality, most business enter Google tracking code on all pages as they each have the possibility of being a landing page.
Google then provides facilities within each account to see how many of the visitors who clicked on the advert then went on to complete the purchase.
A simple calculation can produce the “cost per conversion” figure that depicts how much advertising money on average was spent to sell one unit of the business; product or service.
It can then be determined whether the amount spent was justified given the profit margins available on each unit.
There are of course other intangible benefits that might be derived from advertising that cannot immediately be determined by a straight profit and loss calculation. Business recognition and product awareness are two such attributes that although may not result in an immediate sale, they might lead to more business on a later date.
Google Adwords Vouchers
In order to generate interest and take in Adwords, Google has initiated a vouchers offer system where those signing up for a new account receive the first £30, £40 or £50 worth of advertising free.
Google Adwords vouchers are largely aimed at small business start-ups who would not have had an account previously. It provides an opportunity for them to try this form of advertising and although few meaningful statistics can be gleamed from £50 worth of exposure, it is a good way to present the wealth of information that can be delivered.
Google does not issue Adwords vouchers itself; rather it allows third party suppliers of goods and services to attach them to their products and hence make them more attractive.
Typically these third party merchants offer products that are regularly used by those starting a new business and include domain and web hosting services and company formation agents.
Fraudulent Clicking
The clicking on advertising by competitors and others has been an issue for businesses who use Adwords. As each click costs amount of money it is possible to use up a business’ daily budget by repeatedly viewing its site via the adverting links.
Google has implemented a sophisticated means of identifying click fraud and where this occurs, will reimburse the business to a value of the fraudulent clicks.
Businesses using Adwords should regularly monitor activity on the their accounts and in particular the distribution of clicks. This should highlight any unusual or unexpected patterns in the usage of the Adwords advertisements.
Conclusions
Google Adwords can provide a means for new business start-ups to gain top-level exposure on the worlds most popular search engine right from its launch. Adwords has been proven to lead to sales and can be beneficial in promoting the business as well as its products.
Inducements to use Adwords exist in guise of vouchers that provide a limited free advertising introduction.
Setting daily budgets and monitoring campaigns can provide an adequate method of controlling expenditure and identifying click fraud. However, the information coming from a Google Adwords account is usually some hours old and therefore taking decisive and immediate action might not always be possible.