I often hear businesses complain that cost per click (CPC) advertising like Google Adwords is expensive and just another revenue earner for google, however if set up effectively you can attract excellent targeted traffic to your website to boost your sales and your search engine rankings.

To get the best out of Google Adwords here are a few basic tips for starters:

• Set a budget to suit your business, there are a few ways to control the cost of the ads such as setting a daily budget and a maximum cost per click that you are willing to pay.
• Only advertise in regions and countries that you target as customers. You can select your ads to just show in some parts of New Zealand for example e.g Northland and Auckland. This will avoid ads being displayed in areas that you don’t serve so you’re not paying for ad clicks that you can’t convert to customers.
• Develop a selection of ads to cater to different services or campaigns you offer rather than trying to cover it all in one ad, particularly for businesses that offer a range of products or services. Each ad can then have it’s own set of relevant keywords.
• Ensure you use a set of key words to trigger each ad that are relevant and specific to who you target. The more specific search terms you use the more targeted and effective your ads will be plus the cost per click will be lower. E.g If you are a Luxury B&B in Auckland, instead of using a broad and competitive phrase like “Auckland Accommodation” use terms like “Auckland Central Luxury B&B”. You can check your “Quality score” for keywords – the higher the quality score the less you pay.
• Don’t use keywords for your ads that you already rank high in for google searches – target terms that you want to improve in. It’s a great tool for promoting a new website or new product and services you offer.
• Use the google adwords keyword tool to help you identify popular keywords and a range of search terms for your category.
• Always monitor your ad performance so you can tweak the keywords, your budget and other key settings to improve performance and exposure.

There is considerably more analysis and detail about Google Adwords which you can learn about in the Google Adwords Help and Learning Centre and if it all seems too hard then get advice from an experienced Google Adwords campaign manager to get you started off on the right path.