Google Adsense and Adwords.
Google Adsense and Google Adwords are two very different but very powerful sides of the same coin.
This is a brief overview of each one individually and will give you a good idea if either of these two marketing tools are the tools you could do well with utilizing.
Google Adwords
I'm going to assume that the majority of you have done a few searches on the Google search engine. I doubt you would be reading this if you hadn't. When you search there are natural organic results and paid listings.
The paid listings are displayed at the top of the Google search results page and down the right hand side of the page.
These listings are almost always relevant to the search you have just completed on Google.
The paid listings give you an opportunity to appear at the top of the search results almost immediately which is a nice alternative to taking weeks, months or even years of effort to maximize your SEO and natural results. Your paid listing then has a charge for every time a searcher clicks it and follows through to your product page or website. The trick is to make sure your landing page is a very good sales page and generates good conversion rates.
Good conversion rates are very important with Google Adwords. They are not as cheap as they used to be and you can quickly spend a budget of £100 on maybe 130 to 200 clicks (very rough figures but also quite common) and gain no rewards.
If you find your Google Adwords campaign is not bringing in the results you had originally hoped for it will usually boil down to one of three reasons.
1. Your landing page doesn't sell anything.
If your landing page has a contact form on or the buy now button is buried away amongst 10 other affiliate ads and 4 download links to free PDF's there is a good chance nobody is going to buy your product because they wont be able to see it.
There are a million other reasons why a landing page can fail but a building a successful landing page is much easier than you might think. It simply needs a little bit of vital information, a link to more information if required and the option to purchase the item. Other simple but effective page elements might include a simple image gallery of the product.
The thing to remember is that a visitor has clicked your advert. The chances are they are already looking for your product. Don't start trying to sell it to them. Just provide it!
2. Its not a 'Buy Online' type of product.
Some products just cant be sold through the internet.
Lets say you are a a tiler and you handle all sizes of jobs in various styles etc. A buy now page isn't really going to do you much good - unless of course you sell boxes of tiles or another similar product. In this instance a 'Get a free quote' page is probably better.
Although some people do utilise Adwords to advertise free consultation and quote services the more successful campaigns seem to come from actual products that are sold directly from the landing page. A sort of 'Get it while its hot on inpulse' way of thinking.
3. Your are using the wrong keywords.
If you are selling cheap processors there is no point placing an add that reads 'We work with computers. Loads. Were very good at it' because nobody knows what you are actually talking about. Focus on the more profitable sides of your business.
For a wick tip use google keyword suggestion tools. They will tell you what keywords in your niche are popular and what keywords are currently rising. A good eye will spot an opportunity and increase the chances of conversion success.
Google Adsense
The opposite side of the Google marketing coin is Google Adsense.
You already know that Google display ads at the top and right of their search results but they also display ads on other people website's too - which you probably also knew.
For the owner of the Google advert that can mean even more targeted advertising but they also generate quite a fair bit of money for the website owners.
Of course, Google don't just barge their way into someone's website and decide where they are going to ruthlessly place their advertisements, it is up to the website owner to choose to have the adverts. Then every time someone visits your website and clicks one of the adverts, Google gives you a cut. Instant partners.
Some people - especially successfully blog owners - make a living off these adverts alone. No one really knows for sure but their are quite frequent and common reports of website and blog owners earning thousands of British Pounds every week. Simply by having high traffic. Imagine if your website could pay for three new members of staff and then some more just by you doing what you would have been doing anyway.
It isn't quite that simple of course but the stories are there and I do know from experience that it isn't impossible to earn what could be called a respectable wage just from writing blog posts about things I enjoy.
Be careful!
As much as Adsense sounds very exciting and profitable there are very genuine reasons why it should not be used sometimes. The most obvious reason being you are advertising a product on a page. If you have Adsense on your page it will pick up the subject of your page and display ads that are in direct competition with you and a large amount of Google ads contain deals and offers that can seem almost impossible to even compete with.
So as a rule - no adsense on product sale pages. They work best on information pages that cover subjects and services you don't actually provide but are still within your industry.
Creating content in this way is a very good way to utilise Google Adsense on a sales based website without it interfering with your own sales. In fact, the extra information and links to products or services you don't have or cover can actually make your site more useful to the average user. And that's one of the things that keeps them coming back