Introduction

I wrote this because over the last year or so, I’ve seen quite a number of books on how to use search engine services to make money online, and none have really comprehensively touched on what it takes to overcome your online competitors and ultimately win the Google Adwords game. The truth is, it has become so competitive online, it takes more than knowing the basics to win against your competitors. It also requires Web-savvy creativity and practiced diligence.

Winning the Google Adwords game and making it a profitable business is more than about just knowing how to use the various functions in the Adwords console. It’s understanding how 1) customers behave online, 2) how Adwords works “behind the scenes” in ways that severely affect your ranking and how much they charge you, and 3) knowing how to get your website visitors coming back on a regular basis for more.

Over the last few years, really since the birth of the search engine industry, I have been leveraging search engines to sell products online. I started off with a budget of $350 a month, and within a few years, ended up spending $50,000 a month with Google and Yahoo. Sounds expensive, I know, but consider that those search engine ads were bringing in nearly $800,000 a month (every month) of revenues for the company I was conducting search marketing services for.And yes, they started off as a small business when I started working for them.

This doesn’t mean that you have to spend a lot of money on search engine advertising to make the kind of money you desire online (and everyone’s goals online will vary), but simple “seo” will not build your online business. Nor will (unless you have an incredible invention that has already garnered significant television media) simply listing your ads in a pay per click account with the major search engines. In fact, hiring an seo firm that “guarantees a top 10 placement” and giving your credit card blindly to Google, Yahoo or MSN could be the most expensive (and disappointing) marketing lesson of your life.

Let me also say that you do not have to be a webmaster whiz or a software engineer to build a strong online business. In this book, which I’ve packed with many visual examples and illustrations to follow along, you’ll learn the 5 basics of building an online marketing machine that will make your cash register (or online merchant account) ring!

Part 1. Pay-per-Click Workshop

As of the date of this book’s publication, Google has shown to be one of the most effective (many would argue the most effective) search engine and marketing mediums available to small and medium-sized business owners.

Because television and radio have traditionally been too expensive for most businesses, many entrepreneurs relied on direct mail, yellow page listings, retail presence, word-of-mouth, cold calling, etc.

The wonder of search engines are that they find potential customers right at the time they’re conducting research – which means its exactly the time in their buying cycle that you want to reach them. And unlike print, television, or radio ads, you can track your results down to the penny with search engine marketing.

Who has and can successfully use pay-per-click services from the likes of Google to make money run a vast and wide spectrum, anywhere from a mom-and-pop shop selling hand crafted jewelry online to large, publicly traded firms. But they all have one thing in common – their business would not exist without Google and/or Yahoo.

The search engine this book focuses on (at least in this current edition) is Google Adwords. The expansive reach of the Google search engine, the global dominance of the brand, as well as the real time (or near time) control of the Adwords console make it this author’s favorite search engine to create a revenue stream on.

Step 1) Starting an Adwords Account

If you don’t already have one, go to http://adwords.google.com and sign up for an account by clicking the icon, “Get Started.” Proceed through the form wizard until you come to the Welcome to Adwords screen:

Step 3) Designing Your Ad

This is the first critical step in creating a successful Adwords program. This is where you want to take advantage of the “bonuses” Google gives you for having devised an effective ad and get eyeballs drawn to your ad more often than your competitors.

In order to do this effectively, we’re going to look at 4 different examples of ads we’ll break down into Services, Consumer, B2B, and General Zany.

Services: If you’re a local service based business that operates within a geographic area, definitely choose the local search option as described above in Step 2, and ponder what it is that most often would get your typical customer to pick up the phone (or conduct an online search) for your service. Ask, yourself, “What is that compelling need?”

Step 5: Creating Your Keyword Map

Understanding that the keyword list you create for your ads will continually be modified, deleted, and added to is critical to ensuring success with Google Adwords. The smart marketers always start off with a broad set of keywords, but then eventually whittle them down to the top performers, and eliminate those keywords and phrases that do not. So monitoring this process and continually tracking and modifying your keyword list can easily be the difference between one who spends $1X per day on Google, and one who spends $2.5X – with the same results!

Also, understanding the peripheral phrases and keywords (words that may not be immediately associated with your ad copy) is critical to success as well, and is something that the Google Keyword Suggestion Tool cannot give you. And that’s where the human element comes into the equation, for a software algorithm will never know your customers as well as you do. For example, while many looking for locksmith services in Oakland may type in the phrase Locksmith in Oakland, it is also likely that additional customers can be gained by reaching those who type in Changing Locks.

Now that you’re campaigns are set up, it’s time to set up the rest of your campaign.

This concludes our first chapter.