Google Advertising Made Easy For Small Businesses

With online advertising spend overtaking TV advertising last year for the first time, and the majority spent on Google Adwords, clearly SMEs need to understand how to master Google to survive and grow online.

The benefits of Google Advertising versus offline are clear: low cost commitment, high level of control, high measurability, the ability to perform accurate geo targeting of customers, and the ability to react quickly to improve performance.

The issues SMEs face are considerable: limited time and money (75% of SMEs from a recent survey ran advertising campaigns direct and not via an agency to save money), yet very few feel they understand how to optimise campaigns with 46% of the survey saying they don’t understand it enough to make campaigns work effectively and 39% saying they don’t have time to manage the campaigns. Fifty-two per cent said their campaigns were not profitable, with 54% saying they get traffic to their site but very little converts to actual business.


There also is the fear factor: the fear from the mountain of questions such as whether to use Google’s Search or Network service, an agency or to run campaigns directly, what the optimal levels to spend are, what is a good ROI, how to make banner ads, and how to use the Google tools and reports to optimise campaigns.

In terms of the agency versus direct question, the advantages of using an agency are the experience you tap into and the time saved as campaigns can be live the same day. The disadvantages are cost (with fixed monthly charges, a percentage charge on advertising spend and 6-12 month lock in contracts).

The Search versus Network question on Google depends on the nature of your advertising. If the service is very niche and specific to a limited number of keywords then Search is the better option, otherwise you should pick up businesses from the cheaper network showing banner ads.

Banner ads can be a costly exercise and SMEs should try and use a quality online service.

In terms of optimising campaigns, there are a number of techniques including AB testing of different ad styles, developing specific keyword journeys (from keyword to ad text to content on the landing pages) to build up Quality Scores and lower the cost per click paid, testing board and narrow keyword terms, long versus short tail, optimising between click through rate, impressions and conversion rates on your site, to name a few.

In short optimising on Google Adwords is possible and can deliver real value to your online business but it needs focussed daily management. Alternatives include using an agency specialised in Google Advertising and working specifically with smaller businesses.

Adam Singleton writes for a digital marketing agency. This article has been commissioned by a client of said agency. This article is not designed to promote, but should be considered professional content.

Tags: google, traffic, advertising campaigns, adwords, time and money, niche, converts, limited time, optimal levels, contracts, tv advertising, fear factor, costly exercise

This article is free for republishing

Source: http://www.a1articles.com/article_1599175_7.html

Google Adsense Boost with Google Advertising!

1: Google Advertising is by far the most direct marketing system ever invented. You actually get to place your ad directly in front of a prospect that has searched on a term related to your product or business. Your prospect is proactively looking for what you have to offer. You cannot get a more targeted form of advertising.

2: Market research has never been easier. You now have the opportunity with Google advertising to measure a markets value quickly and cheaply simply by targeting a few ads at this market. With a few targeted Pay Per Click advertising campaigns you can now measure potential ROI across a whole market within a few days for pennies rather than the months and big bucks it used to demand.

3: Market to the planet or to your small hometown. With the introduction of local targeting last year Google Advertising have opened up a whole new opportunity for small businesses. If you offer a service such as a garage or hairdressers etc. before now there was little point in using Google advertising. You can't offer this service over the web. But now with local search you can pinpoint a district for which you would like your ad to appear. Your ad will then appear only to your most likely prospects. At the other extreme if you offer a product that is not reliant on physical location you can now get highly targeted visitor from across the planet or country.

4: If you have a new site you will struggle for a long time to get anywhere near a good listing in the search engines. Google advertising will allow you to take your business straight to market the day your website goes live. Saving you months in potential lost earnings.

5: Recent innovations have seen Advertisers given more control in where their Adwords Ad will appear. You now have the option to advertise on specific sites. Even more recently site owners now also have the option to place a banner on their site advertising the opportunity to visitors to advertise there.

6: Variety. Although Adwords is the leading Google advertising system it's by far the only one. Yahoo have their own system known as Yahoo Search Marketing, formally Overture. MSN are about to bring their new system online, MSN adCenter. Then there's Findwhat, LookSmart, Miva etc. Are your chosen keywords to costly on Adwords? Try one of the other Google advertising networks.

7: Opportunity favours the quick and the prepared. Google and online advertising spending in general is set rocket over the next few years as more and more businesses become disillusioned with the results of their traditional advertising avenues. By learning to utilize Google advertising properly now you can position yourself to take advantage of future developments fast.

Conclusion

As more businesses come online SEO competition is hotting up. Google Advertising already implements a 'Sandbox' which will see new sites get very little traffic for 8 to 12 months after going live. The sandbox is a 'holding pen' for new sites. Google introduced the sandbox as a means to monitor and control new site listings. This was introduced as a defence against the rash of Spam sites that where appearing across the Net.

This being the case don't expect a good ranking or any traffic from Google Advertising for a long time after your new site goes live.

Some cynics will accuse Google Advertising of leveraging their position as market leader in the Search Engine arena to force the owners of new sites to join the Adwords program as the only option for traffic from Google.

To be fair it has crossed my mind in the past but then I remember the Spam results Google suddenly started serving back in March 2004 and I'm thankful I don't see those anymore, thanks in part to the Sandbox.

Google advertising is the fastest route to site traffic