How To Prepare For Using AdWords

Are you ready to use AdWords ? That’s a question you need to answer before trying to set up your first account. If you’re not, you may need to pause things for a few days, do some preparation stuff and come back later.

There are a number of questions you need to answer before starting to use Google AdWords. Here is the first quiz:

What Will You Sell?

On the web, there are basically two options:

1. either sell your own products,
2. or someone else’s.

We say products but in fact you can sell everything from a TV set or piece of furniture to an e-book, financial consulting or spare time. We’ll just use “product” as a generic name.

Knowing what you want to sell leads you to the next qeue:

Do You Have a Site?

Owning a website is a must if you want to sell online (obviously). If you don’t have a website at all, don’t worry. There are many solutions to that. Our favorite is SiteBuildIt — no money wasted, no botching. It is the easiest way to put up your own website in no time, with no programming experience, by using a friendly interface.

In case you choose to become an affiliate — that is to sell someone else’s products — things complicate a bit. We have a different section where you can learn more about how to earn money through affiliate programs using AdWords. Or, better yet, get a copy of the famous Google Cash — that’s where we have learned most of our affiliate money-making techniques.

Does Your Site Sell?

Do you think your website is appealing enough to close the deal? If not, it’d better be soon, because you can’t leave it all on AdWords. The ads alone can’t help you sell unless they link to the corect page: the one that keeps the promise in the ad.

So our advice is that you make sure your site SELLS. That means your website should be efficient in converting prospects into customers. Because, from the moment you’ve set your ad up and running, the visitors cost you money.

This is probably the right moment for us to introduce the term “landing page”, which is the webpage where you send the readers that click on your ad. The landing page does not have to be your home page. On the contrary, it’s best if you send your prospects right to the point. The landing page can be part of a website or just a stand-alone page.

Here are ten “most common mistakes” that you can avoid:

1. Set the wrong goal
2. Make the visitor wait
3. Don’t do what you promised
4. Mistake the benefits for features
5. Value traffic amount more than traffic quality
6. Put pictures ahead copy
7. Use your own words, not the prospect’s
8. Make it difficult to close the deal
9. Think a customer is for once
10. Think a webpage is forever

Instead, you can:

• Set the purpose of your landing page before actually writing it. You decide what you want the visitor to do. A great tip is to set a goal for each page.
• Send to pages that load quickly, don’t use pop-ups, don’t link to pages that were disabled, and generaly speaking, don’t make the visitor wait.
• Highlight the benefits you are offering.
• Do not promise what you can’t offer.
• Instead of pictures and flashes, use copy. Describe the product or the service you sell.
• Try to enter your prospect’s mind. Answer his questions using his words.
• Make the website easy to scan and navigate. Make it obvious how to order.
• Make the customers return to your website. A customer never ceases to be a prospect.
• Test more versions of copy. Don’t hesitate to make the changes that would raise your sales.

Not sure how to do all that? Read Ken Evoy’s Make Your Site Sell. You’ll thank us.

Can You Pay for It?

There isn’t a minimum spending commitment with Google AdWords. It costs US$5 to open an account, and the cost per click can vary from $0.05 to whatever the maximum bid is.

AdWords accepts major international credit cards, debit cards, direct debit, and bank transfer payments. At wish, you can opt for a prepay or post-pay program, but once you’ve made your settings you can’t switch to another paying program. Post-pay is better because your ads can start running immediatelly and the campaign budget is completely under your control.

Choose the currency you want to use before setting up the account (be aware that you will not be able to change this option).

You have the liberty to adjust your budget to what you feel comfortable spending in a day, in a month etc.

If your credit card is empty at the moment Google is charging, your campaign will be suspended, so better supply it before, in order to avoid gaps.

Do You Know Enough?

Before opening up your first AdWords account, you need to learn more. A wise first step to take would be to access the AdWords support page provided by Google itself.

Read carefully the AdWords Terms and Conditions page. See what you can and what you can’t do. Basically, you are entirely responsible of your ad-copy, your URL functionality and your site’s content.

Decided yet? Let’s get your campaign started!