Wow, what a year for Getting Irish Business Online! Over 10,000 businesses have taken the first steps towards getting online and created their website through the initiative. We know there are many more to come.
To sign up simply visit the Getting Business Online website and follow the steps. It really is that easy! Your business is open 24/7. The best part is, it’s *free.
Working on the Getting Business Online program has given me the wonderful opportunity to meet some of the businesses who have taken the first steps towards getting online in person. I understand that once their website is created they want to know more about how to succeed online.
The million dollar question always seems to revolve around the same thing; how can I obtain great visibility on Google Search?
Before we go into this in detail it’s important to point out that most search queries on Google return two different types of results.
For Google Search our no.1 priority is to ensure that our users receive the most relevant results, whatever the query.
Your website can appear in these relevant results organically or via the sponsored links you see on the right hand side of the Google results page. Sponsored links can also be referred to as Google AdWords and this is what we are going to focus on.
So how do the sponsored links work?
In short, Google AdWords is a service designed to enable anyone offering a product, business or service to create, manage and run online advertising quickly and easily. It focuses on allowing advertisers to bid on the keywords or search queries that they believe their customers will be using on Google Search.
It’s a very valuable platform as it allows you to capture potential customers while they are searching for the products or services you offer so they have a higher chance of converting.
It also allows businesses the opportunity to be visible for queries that they may not be ranking well for organically/naturally.
Search adverts are the text ads which are displayed on the Google homepage when the results of a particular search term are entered into the Google search box. They are the text ads which appear on the right hand side of your screen and at the top of the search results.
Some of the key features that attract businesses to this form of advertising are:
Control over who you are targeting with the keywords that you use
Control over the message your potential customers see
Ability to direct customers to the correct page on your website
Every impression, click and conversion is trackable
Full control over daily budget and bids
Reporting is clear, simple and concise
How much does it cost?
The advantage of using Google AdWords is that you have full control over how much you are willing to spend which is important for businesses at the moment. You can control your daily budget and also how much you are willing to bid for each keyword.
Getting great visibility and rankings on Google Search actually costs the advertiser nothing.
You are only charged when someone finds your ad relevant or useful and clicks through to your website. The amount you pay is dependant on the level of competition for your keywords and you will only ever pay one cent more than your next nearest competitor in the rankings.
The cost of Google AdWord normally depends on the level of traffic that exists for the keywords associated with your business. For example if you wanted to bid on a keyword such as “holidays”, you would need to be competitive. However bidding on a keywords such as “pink polka dot teapot,” would work out much cheaper as it would not have as much traffic or competition.
To get an idea of the level of traffic you can use the Google Keyword Tool which will show you how many people are searching online for your keywords every month.
Another great tool to use is Google Insights for Search which helps businesses identify key trends and emerging patterns online.
How can I sign up?
To sign up to Google AdWords simple simple visit the site here!
You can also find examples of other businesses who have started to succeed online using Google AdWords here! Maybe your business could be a success story of the future.
*Getting Irish Business Online: Charges apply after the initial 12 months. (minimum cost per year – EUR26.74 and maximum cost per year = EUR47.98)
