advertising on google adwords

06 Sep 10 8:03 pm

Hi ernestwest,

I agree with RWC that PPC can be expensive, but it need not be so, and expensive doesn't mean your not getting a return on your investment.

There's lots of tutorials to show you how to create accounts, campaigns, adgroups, and ads.

Bits they might not tell you that I'd recommend to keep you out of trouble while you learn are:
1) Create an adwords account
2) Create your first campaign within that account
3) In the Campaign Settings set Networks to Google Search only by unchecking the Search Partners and the Display Network.
4) Set a low budget per day for this campaign to start with so you can't spend too much if you make a mistake (say $10 per day).
5) Now create an adgroup and put in one keyword only as exact match that would be used by someone pretty close to buying (e.g. [buy definitive guide to adwords] ... the square brackets denotes it is an exact match keyword).
6) Create an Ad and try and put the keyword into it, especially the title.
7) 10 minutes later your ad should be approved and display.
8) Use the Ad Preview Tool to check whether the ad is running or not (Google for Ad Preview Tool and you'll find it listed).

Voila... you've now got an ad running.

There's a lot of subtleties to running a campaign well, but something people don't realise is that you're gathering data every time your ad is displayed, even if no-one clicks on it. These are called impressions, and you don't pay for them.

Let me know how you get on.

Cheers, Andy