Adwords

Adwords is the Google advertising service. Put simply, you pay an agreed price per click, and your adverts are given prominence when anyone does a search on a particular word or phrase. It can be a very powerful marketing tool, but get it wrong and it can bite you in the bum, big time.

Remember to do the math. Don't forget, you will pay for every click through to your site regardless of whether you make a sale or not. Some will stumble on your website by accident, others will click on the link just looking for information, with no intent to buy. Make sure that you will more than cover all of these costs. Set a daily budget, and keep an eye on how sales are going. Even when you receive emails suggesting how to change your campaign, take care. Do what you say, and your spend will probably go up, your sales may not follow though.

Make sure your campaign is set up properly, with budget limits, geographical limitations if relevant, split testing and a lot of correctly targeted keywords. To really get results, find out the keywords that are not only relevant to your business, but which are also the ones potential punters are searching for.

The company I use to build my websites start the process with a search to find these keywords. Once you have these, you may not even need to use advertising such as Adwords - your website itself could be constructed strongly enough to bring in all the traffic you need.

If this is all new to you, don't panic. I've set up campaigns for myself and for others, and may well be able to help you. It may be best if I set a campaign up for you, complete with split-testing (to find out which of two ads is more popular), and then you can monitor the results and add to / tweak the campaign as needed. This way, you can gradually pick up how it all works, doing as much or as little as you want. Obviously, I can do the whole thing if you want.

Before you start a campaign, please do make sure that your web site is set up and functioning properly and efficiently. Click on this link for more ideas on how Adwords can link in with your website.