Drive Traffic to Your Website with Google Adwords

If you search for any term in Google, you will see a series of ads that appear on the right column of the search results page. These ads are driven by keywords that any individual/business can purchase according to the type of service being provided. These keywords are called Adwords and they are driven by the most powerful search engine in the world, Google.

I must confess I would have never tried them were it not for several coupons we received at the office that granted us $100 per code. As a creative, I always have reservations about being charged for exposure, but the truth is that you’ll get a lot of attention (maybe sometimes unwanted) by advertising through this channel.

So I created my Adwords accounts, discovered that I can link it to my Google Analytics account, picked several keyword combos I though were effective, and was good to go. The first few days were uneventful but pretty soon I received a “click”. A “click” means just that, someone has clicked on your ad and been directed to your website. This also means you’ve been charged. The price varies per word and I’m still trying to figure out the pricing scheme.

Below is a screenshot of what a campaign looks like on the control panel.

At the top you can see a preview of your ad unit, you can also see and edit various setting including the daily spending limit. Mine is set to $10 as you can see. In the middle of the page you have a line graph that display clicks/day. At the bottom is the keyword list you chose along with the total cost for each word on the far right.

The other two stats to note on the bottom table is clicks (how many times the ad was clicked on) and impressions (how many times the ad was displayed). These two will yield the clickthru (CTR) rate which is a good way to measure performance. The cost per click (CPC) shows how much you are paying each time someone clicks on your ad. It seems like more specific keyword combos like “custom wordpress themes” cost less than the general ones like “web design”.