Boosting Sales with Search Engine Advertising

(Parts 1 - 3 of 3 from http://wealthsmarts.blogspot.com) 

According to Wikipedia (the free online encyclopedia), Search Advertising is a method of placing online advertisements on webpages (especially search engines) based on specific characteristics of the viewer. These could include search words entered by the viewer, as well as geographic location or profile of the viewer.

To break this down a little more - Search Engine Advertising is placing online classified ads where people are actually looking for your product or service. It's like discovering which newspaper subscribers are interested in the widget you sell and only paying to have your ad in the newspapers delivered to those specific houses.

There are several search engines out there that provide this service, calling it search advertising or (more commonly) pay-per-click advertising. I believe that Google originated this type of advertising, followed by Yahoo and MSN Search. If you visit Google and type in "web design", you will see regular search engine listings with "sponsored ads" across the top and "search advertising" down the right-hand side.

If you only had to pay for ads being delivered to prospects specifically seeking your product or service, how would it impact your marketing budget? Can you imagine the return on invested marketing dollars?! What form of advertising are you doing now? Blog about it at http://wealthsmarts.blogspot.com/ and get feedback from us on converting current efforts to search engine marketing or get answers to questions about search engine marketing.

The first step to setting up a search engine advertising campaign is to, obviously, setup your account. I really like Google's advertising system - it is easy to use, and constantly updated with new features.

1. Go to www.google.com/adwords
2. "Click to Begin"
3. Let's select the "Starter Edition", "I have a website" (if you don't, call us at (877) 779-7802 to discuss setting one up for you), & hit "Continue" at the bottom of the page
4. Select your Target Area - this is where most of your customers are.

We will also write our first ad here. Let's say that you own a widget factory that serves the Detroit area. Your headline might read "Detroit Area Widgets" or "We Deliver in Detroit". You are limited on space in these ads so words are precious. You may enter something like "Save on shipping, we deliver" "quality widgets at great prices." You want to get hype words in the ad, but it also needs to be readable. If the prospect cannot understand what you are offering, it's wasted money.

After setting up your ad, you will want to select Keywords for your ad. These are the words/phrases that prospects use to search for your company. The obvious keyword phrase is "Detroit widget", but you may also add "Michigan widgets" or "Wayne County widgets". If your product can be applied in different ways, you may also consider "female widgets" or "widgets for doctors".

Scrolling down the page, you can set your budget for each month. This tells Google, I do not want to spend anymore than $xx dollars per month on this advertising. Google will show your ad until the budget is reached and then wait until the next month.

Google has great keyword tools that will assist you determining which keywords to use. My favorite tool is the Get More Keywords tool.

1. Login to your Adwords account at http://adwords.google.com/
2. Select your Campaign
3. Select the Ad Group you would like to tweak
4. Just underneath the date range, click Get More Keywords

Here you can enter a keyword or phrase and hit "Get More Keywords". Google will suggest variations and related keywords. In addition, and this is the cool part, they show the volume of searches and the volume of advertisers for those keywords. Select keywords from this list with higher searches than advertisers!

Another way to tweak your keywords is to monitor the average position. If you are first or second, you could decrease your bid amount to minimize your prospecting costs. If you are not high enough to get noticed, increase your bid amount.

The final method of tweaking your ads is to copy an existing ad and create a new one with the same copy. Now change a word or two, for example, "best" to "profitable". Each month, check to see which of the two ads has a higher click-through rate. Delete the poorly performing ad after monitoring for 3 months.

If you need help or would like advice, please post a Comment below. Bone Endustries, LLC also provides search engine advertising consulting - we will setup your accounts and manage your ads and keywords for you. For more information, please visit http://www.bonendustries.com/.