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Published in the April edition of 
Computer Link Magazine

Most people are familiar with Google, as a popular search engine to help us find what we are looking for on the web, but did you also know that Google can help you determine the best way to drive more traffic to your site?

Google Ad Words is a banner advertising service that appears when users enter the search criteria that you have purchased for your website. Users can then click on the banner to the right of their screen to go directly to your website. The traffic that Google Ad Words drives to your website is great, however the greatest value may come in the statistics and information that you receive.

Most Internet search engines use words and strings of words that when entered, return search engine results. Understanding which words work best in conjunction with your particular product or service is key.

We recently launched a new Web site to promote a service that our company is rolling out. As I began to focus on the most effective ways to promote and market this service I came across Google Ad Words. Google's banner advertisement program is different from those of other search engines.

First, the banner advertisements that appear are text only, and have a subdued presence on the right hand side of the search engines results pages. This subtlety is quite different from other portals that have annoying, vibrant, and intentionally distracting advertisements all over the page.

Ad Words also has a great browser administration capability that is intuitive and easy to use. When creating banners there is an easy to use editor and ad preview capability. The banners that are created are only differentiated by their words rather than a snappy, creative advertisement produced at high cost.

Unlike other Internet based advertising services, with Google, there is no minimum cost to use the service, and users are able to set their own spending limit. When selecting your budget, there are eight possible positions that run down the right hand side of the search results page. Current rates based on ranking from the top of the page are $8 to $15 per thousand impressions. The statistics you receive at the end of your campaign provide you with information based on your position, and how many impressions were served in that position. Even more importantly they list how many visitors clicked-through from each position.

The one feature that didn't seem to work well was the projection of how long it would take for a budget to be used. With Google your budget is only used based on the number of impressions made. In my first campaign it was projected that my $500 dollar budget would run for about 2 weeks when in reality it was fully expended in about 1 and a 1/2 days. My most recent campaign was projected to run for about a month. It's been running for a month now and only about 25% of my budget has been used. The trick is to find the words that result in the best click through rates for your particular product or service so that you get the most for your money.

In my first campaign for www.smartinternetmarketing.com, a suite of internet marketing products that offers email, survey, sweepstakes, and trackable links, I selected the following words; newsletter, survey, sweepstakes, CRM, permission marketing, emarketing, and email marketing. This campaign resulted in over 40,000 impressions, but an average click-through rate of only .26%, which was overall, not very impressive. Each of the words was accounted for separately with "survey" resulting in the most impressions overall at 23,000, however, at a click-through rate of only .23%, did not provide a very good return on investment. The most outstanding result came from "email marketing" which had only 717 impressions but a high click through rate of 2.52%. Based on this data, I have been able to select words for my most recent campaign that may not result in a lot of impressions, but provide great traffic to my Web site and ultimately has resulted in sales success!

As I mentioned earlier, the Google Ad Words statistics are as valuable if not more valuable than the advertising itself. Thanks to the low cost of running campaigns with Google Ad Words, you can research and test all types of word combinations. Once you find the word combinations that work best for your Web site, you can tune your meta-tags in all search engines and improve your sites overall traffic.

Tips for effective key word selection include, avoiding singular or general words. Since you are charged for impressions against vague or general words, they tend to provide lots of impressions, but a very low click-through rate, eating through your budget very quickly, as seen in our example above with "survey". Compound words work the best. In my most recent campaign "email marketing" has resulted in a much higher click through rate than any single word.

Google's Search Engine is certainly one of the top portals on the Internet today, and has been my personal search engine of choice for some time now. I've now added Google to my list of highly effective, low cost advertising tools that can provide me with not only an effective advertising campaign, but immediate real world results that help me to determine how to drive more traffic to my website!