It was a few weeks ago when I came home, checked the mail, and found a letter from my web hosting company HostGator. To my delight, they had sent a letter that contained $100.00 worth of free advertising for Google Adwords. Working on virtually zero marketing budget I was ecstatic that HostGator had presented me with a wonderful opportunity to gain some much needed exposure.
Just yesterday, I finally took advantage of HostGator’s promotional offer with Google Adwords and set-up my account and campaign(s). I had previously used Google Adwords for a project in my Internet Marketing course in college so I had to briefly re-familiarize myself with the logistics of Google Adwords. Not surprisingly enough (I mean this is Google), it was very easy to set-up my campaign and select keywords I wished to bid on.
I’m still figuring out what keywords work best for me but have been focusing more on keywords in the “Marketing” “Social Media” arena. It is key to monitor daily (at the least) what keywords are performing the most effectively for your campaign. By rooting out the ineffective keywords you are allowed to better allocate your Adwords money to keywords that are gaining more impressions and clicks. A few quick things to remember when establishing your Google Adwords account and campaign.
- Google Adwords, generates a “suggested” list of keywords they think is best for you. It is advisable to go outside their suggestions and bid on keywords that are more suitable for your product or business. For example, I had to ventured outside the “Social Media” list and manually bid on “Marketing” keywords.
- If you are on a strict/trial budget, make sure you are on the manual payment plan; you don’t want to have reoccurring charges if you’re not sure you can afford Adwords every month.
- Make sure you already have some linkage with Google so you can easily use your current Google log-in to set-up your Adwords account.
- A good rule of thumb to start with, then modify if need be, is $3.33/day budget.
In the coming month, I should be able to determine if Google Adwords is a promotional tool I would like to continue to use to drive traffic to my blog. Look for a follow-up post that will detail whether Adwords was a lucrative success or a flip flop failure. If anyone has any advice or tidbits about Google Adwords, please feel free to leave a comment. Thank you to HostGator for bestowing upon me this offer to utilize Google Adwords as a marketing tool.
