With roughly 2.3 million Google searches performed every minute, you can’t afford not to.
With roughly 2.3 million Google searches performed every minute, search results pages are effectively the highways of the internet, with fast-flowing pedestrians zooming by on their way to their digital destinations.
And just like on a conventional highway, there are billboards everywhere: Google Adwords, which allow businesses to place adverts on Google search results pages (as well as on Youtube videos and innumerable other partnered sites).
It’s billboard space that can be bought by literally anyone with an AdWords account, which means it’s just as accessible to small businesses as to large ones.
So if there’s any advertising space in your budget, Google AdsWords is a sensible place as any to spend it.
How does Adwords work?
AdWords works by serving ads to users based on words they search for. You get to select what words you want to target. If you’re a micro-brewery, for instance, you might want to target searches like “pubs near me”.
Google will charge you for each click your ad gets, with the price determined by the number of other people who want to buy ads on the same search term, so terms like “cheap phone” will be expensive to serve on, whereas terms like “cephalopod isometrics” will not be.
Where do I start?
Google’s own Adwords.google.com will take you through the AdWords process step-by-step.
A Google ad consists of three main parts: a headline, description and display URL. Your headline is the most important bit, as that’s what’s going to sell your product or service.
The basics of actually setting up a Google ad are very easy – what’s harder is making sure your ads are actually working for you, and driving the right clicks through to your site.
Remember: the sooner you get started, the faster you’ll learn
