As I understand this, (and please correct me if I’m wrong) I can create hundreds of search phrases as part of my AdWords program and if someone is searching on Google and their choice of search terms is one that I’m willing to “pay for”, than I will be listed high in the search result.
Correct, so far?
Further, I can put a monthly budget on how much I’m willing to spend. Also, I can put how much I’m willing to pay for any given individual, discreet search. So…for example I’m willing to pay 25 cents for a specific search term every time someone searches that term. (up to my monthly budget) As I understand it, I will be on the first page if no one else has bid something in excess of 25 cents for the same term; in which case I will be in the hierarchy based on how I and other competitors bid on that term. If I bid 25 cents, and a competitor bid 40 cents, they will be higher in the search result.
Correct so far?
This leave me concerned about “leaving money on the table.” IOW, if I bid 25 cents, and no other competitor is using AdWords, than perhaps 5 cents would have produced the same result, the effect of which is that I’ll use my monthly budget up faster, increase my transaction costs, and get less overall traffic.
Other than doing my own searches, how do determine what my bids should be?
Do you know what the “typical” (if something like this exists) bid is for a single search?
Is it possible to attach a different bid to different search terms? (presumably because those terms would produce higher revenue/profit)
Any feedback/experience would be appreciated.
Go to Google AdWords and sign up. There’s no fee for signing up. They have tools in place that can help you answer all the questions you asked. Also, you can change your bid amounts any time you want. So, in your example, if you start out with that 25 cent bid, then you do a Google search and see that you have no competition for that keyword, you can go right then and lower your bid to 5 cents.
There’s no “typical” bid, they vary tremendously depending on the search term.
In short, it’s not magic, it’s not guaranteed to boost your sales %1000, but it is good bang for the buck. How much business you get from it depends on how reputable your business is and how much you work on it.
You can sign up for many different search words in many combinations. You also specify a maximum bid, the number of times you want your ad to appear, and so forth. It is more complicated than this, though. I suggest you read through the AdWords site.
I can suggest this, based on my experience:
[ul]
[li]Decide what you want your overall advertising budget to be[/li][li]Figure out how to spend it over a day or month[/li][li]Clean up your website so that people can easily find what you’re selling[/li][li]Come up with a short, catchy phrase to put with your link[/li][li]Choose the search terms that will best get your customers to your site[/li][li]Remember that advertising, even Internet advertising on Google, is not “one click equals one sale”[/li][li]Watch your statistics[/li][/ul]
Google AdWords is not “I pay $100 for my ad, and put in ‘Acme left-handed widgets’ for the terms, so every time someone types in that phrase I should be at the top”. It just doesn’t work that way.
Also remember that you may do better if your site is useful for your search results. Poring every search result in the world into your campaign, just to lead to a site selling Acme left-handed widgets, is not going to work. Google will catch on and penalize you. Conversely, setting up a good site for people who really need left-handed widgets will get you more traffic, more business, and better results for your ad placement.
It’s not difficult to learn how to use AdWords, but you do need to learn how to use it. It’s not automatic. You may not get great results out of it if you’ve never advertised before.