You're about to set up a fully functioning AdWords account! I congratulate you on this momentous step in your online advertising career. I'm so glad I'm here to share it with you.
In this chapter, I walk you through setting up your account. If you already have an existing account, you can skip ahead to the next chapter "Managing Your AdWords Account," where you explore three basic account features: campaign management, keyword selection, and ad writing.
Fortunately, Google has greatly simplified the process for opening a new AdWords account:
Open your Web browser and go to
http://adwords.google.com.(Optional) Choose a language other than English (US) from the drop-down list at the top right, and Google will translate the page into that language.
Click the Start Now button at the top right.
(Sometimes the button is labeled Click to Begin or Let's Get Started. I've never seen it read Drink Me, but I'm hopeful ....)
Select Standard Edition and click the Continue button.
This step may no longer be part of the process because the Starter Edition is headed toward retirement. So if you don't see this option, relax, remember that AdWords continues to evolve, and skip to Step 5. If you wish to learn more about the Starter Edition or already have a Starter Edition account, you may want to check out the Starter Edition bonus chapter, which is available online at
www.askhowie.com/starter.Select the type of e-mail you want to use with your AdWords account. If you chose an existing Google Account, enter your Google Account information, and then click the Continue button. Otherwise, type your e-mail address, new password (twice), and the Visual Verification text, and then click the Create Account button.
An AdWords account can be created with any e-mail address combined with an AdWords–specific password. If you already have a Google Account for Gmail or other Google services, you can use it for your AdWords account. If you are a Gmail junkie, for example, you'll want to connect the accounts so you don't sign yourself out of AdWords every time you check your mail. If you don't have a Google Account, you're prompted to create one using an existing e-mail account. Watch out for the Visual Verification text that Google uses. It took me only three tries to get it right.
Select your currency from the drop-down list and click the Continue button.
Your AdWords account is now created. If you used an existing Google Account, your account is now active. You will receive an activation e-mail with a link to the AdWords start page. Click that link and skip to Step 9. If you did not use an existing Google Account, then a verification e-mail is sent to the e-mail address you used in Step 5.
Check your e-mail and click the verification link in the Google AdWords Account Verification e-mail.
Your AdWords account is now activated.
Click the Click Here to Continue link.
This takes you to the AdWords start page in Step 1.
Log in to your new AdWords account (upper-right side) by typing the e-mail and password you used in Step 5 and clicking Sign In.
Are you in? Congratulations! You are now ready to create your first campaign.
Google has made creating your first campaign as easy as possible. Here's all you have to do:
Click the Create your first campaign button.
(Optional) Select one or more languages from the list box.
If you're advertising exclusively in English, do nothing. To choose multiple languages, hold down the Ctrl key while you click (for PC users) or the
(Optional) Click the Change Targeting link to change the country or countries where you want your ads to be seen:
A pop-up window with lots of options appears, but to keep it simple for now, try to ignore the map and click the Browse tab. In the upper box (left side), click the appropriate check box to select each country in which you want your ads to be shown. The selected locations appear in the lower box. You can target your ads with flashlight-like (not really laser-like) precision. I show you how to do this in Chapter 7.
To remove a country, just click its check box to unselect it.
When you're done, click the Done button to close the pop-up window.
Click the Continue button.
Fill in the text boxes to create an ad; click the Continue button when you're finished.
Now Google wants you to create your first ad. What, you're not ready to whip out a masterpiece of persuasive prose at the drop of a cursor? No worries. Type pretty much anything here — you won't show it to the world for a while. The following list provides guidance on what to enter in those text boxes:
In the Headline text box, type the problem or opportunity.
In the Description Line 1 text box, enter a short description of big benefit.
In the Description Line 2 text box, write a short description of your product/service.
In the Display URL text box, type your Web site's name.
In the Destination URL text box, enter the URL of the exact Web page you want customers to visit first (called the landing page).
The display URL is what your prospect sees in the ad itself. It must be "real" enough to go somewhere relevant if they were to type it, but it doesn't have to be the same as the actual destination URL. Think of the display URL as the name of your online store; would you rather buy a CN Netcom amplifying phone headset from
www.StuffThatSitsOnYourDesk.comorwww.PhoneSupplies.com/Netcom-Headsets? You can use the destination URL to track your Web site's traffic and to show different pages to different markets.See Figure 2-1 for an example. But please don't sweat it at this point. Just write something that doesn't violate Google's editorial or content guidelines (see the section, "When nobody can see your ad," later in this chapter) and move on.
Type your chosen keywords into the text box and click the Continue button when you're finished.
For now, choose a single keyword that someone searching for your business might type. For example:
used cars glow in the dark poker chips functional fitness training
You should also use two variations of this keyword that represent phrase and exact matches. For a phrase match, enclose the keyword in quotes; for an exact match, enclose the keyword in brackets. These variations are described in detail in Chapter 5. If your keyword is
gout recipes, then the two variations would be"gout recipes"and[gout recipes].Type your keyword along with its two variations into the keyword text box, one keyword per line. (See Figure 2-2.)
Just above the Continue button, Google asks whether you want to look for more keywords. For now, ignore the invitation. In Chapters 4 and 5, you discover how to find keyword variations to your heart's delight.
Note
Google is, at its core, a very large data processor. By tracking the behavior of searchers, it gets smarter all the time — and can offer better suggestions to advertisers and better search results to shoppers. Google notices, for example, how long a person stays away after clicking an ad or free listing. Say you click my ad, look at my Web page for 3 seconds, and then click back to Google for another search; that tells Google you didn't think much of my site. Enough data like that, and my bid prices will increase to penalize me for not giving Google's users what they want.
Tip
The keyword-suggestion tool can be helpful, but don't use it right now. Until you understand how to create tightly focused ad groups, the tool will create a messy and unfocused campaign. Use the tool later to refine your campaigns. Right now, just pick one or two closely related terms, if you like, and continue.
Type how much you're willing to spend in the Enter Your Daily Budget and the Enter Your Maximum CPC text boxes.
Ready to have some fun? It's trial-and-error time, thanks to Google's Traffic Estimator. Enter any numbers you like for daily budget and maximum CPC and then click the View Traffic Estimator link. It shows you estimated CPC, the position of your ad, the likely number of clicks per day, and your daily cost. An ad position of 1 puts you at the top of the first page, 9–10 put you at or near the bottom of the first search-results page or top of the second page, and 11+ puts your ad squarely on page 2, or worse.
Tip
Typically, an ad on page 2 gets one-tenth the impressions of the same ad on page 1, so (unless the clicks are ridiculously expensive on the first page), page 1 is where you want to be.
To view the maximum traffic you could possibly expect from that keyword, enter a maximum CPC of $100 and a daily budget of $10,000.
Warning
Make sure you change these back before continuing!
Google shows you the most you'll pay for a click if your ad is in the top position and the maximum number of clicks each keyword will generate in a day. Keep in mind, your ad may outperform or underperform this estimate, depending on how well it connects with your prospects.
Settle on a CPC you can live with financially that puts your ad somewhere on the first page. You can make adjustments when you have actual results to base them on.
Click the Continue button.
Review your selections on the next page, decide whether you want e-mail from Google about AdWords strategies and tips, choose an appropriate answer from the How Did You First Hear about Google AdWords drop-down list, and finally, click the I'll Set Up Billing Later button.
The two right-most tabs at the top enable you to manage the business side of your AdWords Account: Billing and My Account. The Billing tab allows you to keep track of your spending and update credit cards. Click the tab and you see two items in a drop-down list: Billing Summary and Billing Preferences. Billing Preferences is where you go to set up your payment options. Don't forget to use the AdWords Gift Card code included with this book when you are providing your other billing details.
The My Account tab (see Figure 2-3) allows you to update your login information, set your e-mail notification preferences, and enable access to your account by other users. It also has two subtabs: Account Preferences and Account Access. Explore them at your leisure — they're pretty self-explanatory.
If you run an online pharmacy, you'll need a PharmacyCheckerID before Google will let you advertise. Go to the Account Preferences subtab, find the PharmacyCheckerID section, and click the Edit link. On the page that appears, click the Read Our FAQ link to find out how to apply.
Your ads won't show up on-screen until you activate your account by giving Google five bucks and a working credit card number (the five bucks is waived — plus you get $25 in prepaid clicks — when you use the gift card in the back of this book). You can do this by clicking the link in the warning box with the reddish-pink background and following the account activation wizard (Google is very user-friendly when it comes to taking your money), or take the tour first and pay later. Even if you activate now, you can pause your campaigns so you aren't charged for a lot of traffic before you know what you're doing. After you complete your account setup, wait 15 minutes, and then browse to www.google.com and do a search on your keyword. (See Figure 2-4.)
To activate your account, follow these steps:
Click the Billing tab and then click Billing Preferences.
Use the drop-down list to select your billing country.
The most common choices are at the top, followed by a long list of just about every country there is.
Select your country from the Time Zone Country or Territory drop-down list, and then select your time zone from the Time Zone drop-down list.
Google won't let you change your time zone after you set it, so be careful here. No second chances!
Click the Continue button.
You can choose between Postpay Billing (to be charged when clicks come in) and Prepay Billing (having the cost of clicks deducted from a prepaid balance). For Postpay, you can choose between Direct Debit from a bank account and a charge to a credit card, such as American Express, JCB, MasterCard, or Visa. For Prepay, your only option is a credit card.
Warning
Dave Jabas of
www.myemailassistant.comrecommends using a dedicated low-limit credit card just for your AdWords billing. Although Google includes circuit breakers like budgets and maximum click costs, sometimes things go wrong. If you limit your exposure to a few hundred or a few thousand dollars, you won't wake up one morning with a giant Google bill and no earthly idea how it happened.(Optional) Click the Understanding AdWords link.
This is where Google explains that Google does not pay you to write ads; you pay Google.
Click Continue.
You're taken to a screen where you fill out billing information. If you've ever bought anything online, the process is straightforward and simple.
Tip
Google's preferred phone-number format includes dashes, but no parentheses or periods:
919-555-3167
not
(919) 555-3167
Tip
Don't forget to click the Click Here link next to "Do you have a promotional code" if you own this book and aren't reading it in the bookstore café with a latte on your lap. Then enter the promotional code, printed on the big green coupon in the front of the book, in the text box. The promotional code provides you with $25.00 worth of AdWords clicks, and covers your $5.00 activation fee.
After you complete the form, your account is live — and your ad should start showing on the right side of the Google search results page for the keywords you selected.
After you complete your account setup, wait 15 minutes, and then browse to www.google.com and do a search on your keyword.
Look at the top and the right of the search results page. If you don't see your ad, scroll down and click the More Sponsored Links link. Keep going through the pages until you see your ad or you get to the end of the listings. This exercise gives you an idea of the competitiveness of your market. If you see a lot of competitors, don't get discouraged. It means a lot of people think they can make money here. The information in this book will put you way ahead of most of them. Seeing no or few competitors for a keyword may indicate a market that's too small or too unresponsive.
If your ad doesn't appear in the right column within 30 minutes of account activation, you may have a problem. Usually, correcting it is simple — once you figure out what it is.
If your ad isn't receiving any impressions (indicated by a 0 in the last row of the Impressions column), you may be a victim of one of the following:
Editorial disapproval: Have you violated Google's editorial guidelines? If you throw exclamation points around like crazy, promise "the best" or "the cheapest" stuff, capitalize like you're screaming in a chat room, use copyrighted terms, offer cheap drugs from Canada or $25 Rolexes or nuclear-weapon-making instructions, or commit any of a dozen other infractions, your ad won't show.
Google lays out their rules here:
Low ad rank: Based on your monthly budget (which you set when you create the account) and your choice of a maximum bid price (which you can edit at any time), your ad may be relegated to page 19 of search results. That is the equivalent of scribbling it onto the back of a gas station receipt in yellow crayon and tossing it into a dumpster.
You can see exactly in what positions your ads show. At this point, you can try raising your minimum bid — and monthly budget — to see if that gets you onto the first page of search results.
Poor keyword performance: If your keyword is
pink slippers big enough to fit an African elephantor some other phrase that few or no people would ever search for, you could wait a long time before seeing a single click. In Chapter 5, I introduce you to the spy tools that help you find exactly what people are typing into their online searches.Poor keyword Quality Score: Google assigns each keyword in your account a Quality Score, based partly on the match between the keyword, the ad, and the landing page of the Web site, and partly on the historical performance of that keyword in other AdWords accounts. If Google thinks that a keyword you've chosen isn't going to make them money (because it won't generate AdWords clicks) or will give searchers a poor quality experience if they select your ad, your ad will appear far away from the first page of search results. Google forces you to improve the quality score (see Chapter 5) or place a really high bid to show your ad.
Sometimes your ad is receiving impressions, but try as you might, you can't find it yourself. Before you start humming the Twilight Zone theme, consider the possibilities described in the following subsections.
When you first set up your account, you had to choose a geographic location within which to advertise. Google may be interpreting the information it's reading on your computer (specifically, its Internet Protocol [IP] address), to mean you yourself are outside of your targeted area. IP addresses are loosely connected to different parts of the world.
To find out where the Internet thinks you are, go to www.ipligence.com and scroll down until you can see the map at the bottom right, shown in Figure 2-5.
There are many reasons why Google could get confused about where in the world you are. First, IP addresses aren't exact — they're not like zip codes or postal codes. Second, if you're connecting to the Internet through a service that's somewhere other than where you are, Google can be misled. Third, little green aliens from outer space sometimes take over my fingers when I'm typing stuff I really don't know anything about so that the paragraphs look long enough to be authoritative.
Note
Every machine connected to the Internet has a unique IP address, a string of four numbers separated by dots. Google's IP address, for example, is 216.239.51.100. The IP address is the "real" Internet address. We humans give Web sites names, like Google and WalletEmptyingJunk.com, so we can find them more easily. The Internet machines map these names onto the numbers to send our browsers and e-mails to the right places.
Confused? Try this experiment: Open a Web browser, type 216.239.51.100 into the address bar, and press Enter. If you enter the numbers and dots correctly, you should arrive at Google's home page.
Your IP address may be unique to your computer, shared by other computers on your network, or even shared by many of the computers served by your Internet service provider (ISP).
If you choose to advertise in Spanish (for example), you may not be able to find your ad if your Google searching preference is set for English. To change it (you can always change it back), go to www.google.com and click Preferences next to the search box. Click the Search Only for Pages Written in These Language(s) radio button and put a check next to the relevant language. Click Save Preferences to return to your search.