Are you looking for ways of promoting your business on local Google listing but don’t want to pay an agency to run your PPC (Pay Per Click) campaign? Running your own account doesn’t have to be time consuming. See our guide on how to set up your AdWords account and manage it in just 10 minutes a day!

Your priority for managing PPC campaigns is to be very specific about targets that you want to achieve. You have limited budget and you really want to receive the highest ROI for the amount being spent. There is not much room for risk taking; so here are tips which can help you set up and manage your AdWords account more effectively.

 

Set up your AdWords account (20 min)

Signing up is simple:

1. Go to http://adwords.google.com
2. Click the “Start Now” button
3. Follow the instructions as Google takes you through all the necessary steps
4. Be careful when entering your time zone and currency as these can’t be changed later
5. You will be asked to choose how you want to pay. Credit or debit card prepay is the quickest and safest way to get started

Create Your First Campaign (1 hour)

Whilst setting up your account Google will prompt you to create your first AdWords campaign. An AdWords campaign has three main components:

1. Keywords – the keywords in an ad group tell Google which searches you want your ads to appear for
2. Adverts – adverts are the messaging that is shown to searchers on Google
3. Ad Groups – an Ad Group is a collection of keywords and ad texts. A campaign can contain many ad groups. It is best to make more than one ad group so that the ad text and the keywords match up

Start with something simple. How about creating an ad group targeting keywords around your business name or “IFA in YOURTOWN”.

USEFUL TIP: Turn off the content network

As default the content network is turned on. Google’s display network enabled will show your ads on all Google’s partner sites. By turning this off you will not waste your budget on unnecessary ad placements. You can always tailor which sites that you want your ads to appear for; which is a much more efficient way of managing the content network. This leaves you just using search; when someone searches they know what they are looking for so basically you have a customer who is already willing to buy, search or convert so this means there is a much higher chance of a lead.

To turn off the content network go to:
CAMPAIGNS > SETTINGS > NETWORKS AND DEVICES>DISPLAY NETWORK

 

 

 

Weekly management of your AdWords account

 

Here is what your week may consist of:

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Local Targeting	Test Adverts	Negative Keywords	Keyword Opportunities	Conversion Tracking
Check how those targeted campaigns are performing against those that are not.	Try out new ad copy and review each week. Allow a few weeks to judge impact.	Check search terms and add in negative keywords each week.	Always look for new keywords to include (take note of word variations).	Pull a conversion tracking report and see how each area is performing. Make suggestions for improvement.
5 mins	10 mins	10 mins	10 mins	10 mins

 

1. Use local targeting (initial set-up 20 min, weekly review 5 min)

Channel your spend into locations where your customers are. You can set geo-targeting for specific keywords, ad groups or whole campaigns. Start out by targeting a radius around your company to ensure maximum recognition in your local area.

To turn off the local targeting go to:
CAMPAIGNS > SETTINGS > LOCATIONS AND LANGUAGES

 

 

2. Test Adverts (weekly review 10 min)

Ad copy is easy to trial and can make a real difference to the response rate of your campaigns. Include name of your company and services you are offering. Once you have more confidence and knowledge about what works and what doesn’t, try experimenting with new, more adventurous copy.

 

3. Review search query reports and add negative keywords (weekly review 10 min)

Google uses your keywords to decide which search queries to show your adverts for. Matching is not always 100% perfect so check the actual search queries that triggered your ads with a search query report. Do they closely match your keywords and your products or services? If not, you may want to think about adding some negative keywords.

Negative keywords prevent your adverts from showing for some search queries. For example you can block your advert from appearing for the query “free accountancy advice” by adding “free” as a negative keyword. This will prevent your advert from showing for any query that contains the word "free".

You don’t want your ads to come up for unrelated terms because it costs you money each time someone clicks your advert. By adding a few negative keywords each week this should be avoided.

To review the search terms go to:
KEYWORDS > SEE SEARCH TERMS > ALL/SELECTED

A keyword list will appear some with a green added box – these are the ones that you already have in your campaign. You can review these and add negatives for terms you do not want to appear for.

 

4. Find new keyword opportunities (weekly review 10 min)

Use the keyword tool or add keyword button within Google Adwords to look for new opportunities. There is no harm in trying out new keywords; use the keyword tool to see the search traffic and how much potential each keyword has.

To get Google suggestions of new keywords (based on your website and competitors) go to:
REPORTING AND TOOLS > KEYWORD TOOL

 

To find new ideas, based on your existing keywords go to:
OPPORTUNITIES > IDEAS > KEYWORDS

 

5. Use conversion tracking (weekly review 10 min)

Conversion tracking allows you to see what a person does after they have clicked on your ad, so you can see who searches and what activity was undertaken.
To do this you need to place some html code on the “conversion page” of your website. The conversion page might be the page showing your contact details or some other page that users only see when they are on their way to becoming (or have already become) a customer.

To track conversions go to:
REPORTING AND TOOLS > CONVERSIONS

Click the “New conversion” button and give your conversion a name. The conversion location is "Web Page"

 

You can leave the rest of the settings as they are for now. You have to include a “Google Site Stats” notification unless the privacy policy for your website covers you for this type of tracking. You then have the option of emailing the conversion tracking code to your webmaster or seeing the code yourself so that you can copy and paste it into your website.

 

Once the code is added to your website then you are done! Now you are ready to really get the most out of one of the most accountable forms of marketing in the world.

 

Please note that this article was written on 10 October 2011 and any changes made by Google after this date won’t be included.

Our digital agency is Reform Digital (reformdigital.com)