Hi Folks, Dave Waring here from Fitsmallbusiness.com and today's lesson of the day. In our last
video we continued our series on online marketing, with a look at how to rank your small business
website in Google's local search results. In today's video we are going to continue
that series, with a look at how to advertise your business in Google search. So let's get
started! Step 1: Signup for a Google Adwords Account
If you do not already have one, the first step is to visit Google Adwords and signup.
Signing up for the account is free, you only pay when you start running ads. Also if you
have bought any products from Godaddy, you likely have a $100 adwords credit. To activate
that just click on your my accounts link in Godaddy and scroll down to the bottom where
it says "free advertising credits". Step 2: Decide what you want to advertise
and what success looks like The next step is to decide what the goal is
with your ads. For example, a likely goal of a dentist who was advertising their site
via Adwords would be to get new patients. Perhaps, even more targeted, a specific type
of patient. Success in this example might be new patient appointments.
Step 3: Do Your Keyword Research Keywords are the words and phrases that people
search on Google. In order for your ads to show up in Google's search results, you have
to specify what keywords you want to trigger your ad. When coming up with your keyword
list, its best to start broad, and then narrow down later. Also keep in mind that you want
to think like a customer thinks, which means avoiding things like industry jargon and other
terms a customer wouldn't use. Once you have come up with some ideas then
login to your Adwords account, go to "Tools and Analysis" and click on "Keyword Tool".
Type in the keyword that you are interested in potentially advertising for and then adwords
will come back with the approximate number of searches per month for that keyword. If
you click on the "keyword suggestions" tab at the top of the results, it also gives you
a list of related keywords that you might want to consider advertising for along with
the traffic estimates for those terms. I have included a link to an extensive guide
on how to do keyword research in the resources link below this video.
Step 4: Setting Up Your Campaign Next click the campaigns link from the top
menu and then select create new campaign. This takes you to your campaign setup page
where you have the below options: Campaign Name: I recommend starting with 1
campaign, but you may run additional campaigns in the future to target different products
and or services. With this in mind, give the campaign a name that is representative of
the ads you will be running. Campaign Type: All Google paid search campaigns
run on both Google's search and display ad network by default. For beginners I recommend
changing this setting to "search network only" because it is more targeted.
Locations: If you are a local business, you will likely also want to use the location
settings option on this page. This makes it so your ads only show when someone searches
Google within a specified distance of your place of business. Use the "radius targeting"
option here by clicking on "let me choose" under locations, and then "advanced search".
Budget: Next you need to set your default bid (the amount you want to pay per click
on one of your ads) and maximum daily budget. There is a great article and infographic in
the resources link below this video which outlines the average conversion rates from
google paid search by industry. Overall the average is around 5%. Armed with this information
and an approximate estimate of how much a conversion is worth to you, you can get a general
idea of how much you can afford to spend. Going back to our example of the dentist,
lets say that he or she can afford to pay around $50 to acquire a new client. Taking
the average conversion rate from Google paid search of around 5% we know that the dentist
is going to have to get around 20 people to click on his ad in order to get 1 new patient.
By dividing $50 by 20 we come to a good level to start with of $2.50 a click that the dentist
can afford to pay. This would be a good default bid to start with in this example.
Ad Extensions: Lastly you want to setup ad extensions, which allow for things like your
address, phone number, and additional links to your site. If you have setup a Google Plus
Page for your business you can also show your business's Google Plus star rating in your
add. Adding extensions makes your ad bigger in Google's search results and allows customers
to click to call you from their mobile phones, two things which can dramatically increase
your conversion rates. They also do not cost anything extra, so in most cases they are
a smart idea to include. If you have not setup a google plus page yet, I have included a
guide on how to do that in the resources link below this video.
Step 5: Write Your ads. Now that you have your keyword ideas you can
think about the type of ads that you may want to write. Going back to our example of the
dentist, if he or she was looking to get patients for any type of dental work, the the ad would
likely be general in nature like this.
If on the other hand this same dentist was looking for a specific type of patient, the
ad may be more specific like this one:
There is a great post from Google about how to write effective ad copy which I have included
in the resources link below this video. I recommend reading the full post but the summary
is: The headline should grabs users' attention
and make them aware of your offering. Description line 1 should spark users' interest
in your offering. Description line 2 should develop a desire
to obtain your product or service. And finally, the Display URL should consolidate
a user's decision to take action. There are some more great tips from Saad Kamal
over at search engine journal which I have also included in the resources link. Once
your ads start to run you will be able to see which ads are performing the best and
optimize your ads accordingly. With this in mind you should come up with 3 or so ads (click
the "ads" "then new ad" button), which google will automatically rotate for you so you can
see which one performs the best. Step 6: Turn Your Campaign Live, Evaluate,
and Optimize Now its time to turn your campaign live. I
recommend letting the campaign run for around a week before you make any changes, so you
will have some good baseline data to work from. After observing for a week you should
have a good idea of which ads and keywords are working for your business. If you have
hooked in your free Google Analytics account you will also be able to see what your potential
customers are doing on your site and can optimize accordingly. I have included two links in
the resources link below this video with more information on optimizing your ads and setting
up a google analytics account. That's our video for today, please leave any
comments or questions in the comments section below. Also be sure to stay tuned for the
next video in this series, where we will discuss how to leverage Facebook for your small business.
For more great advice on how to start and run a successful business, be sure to visit
us at fitsmallbusiness.com today. Thanks for watching!