Seems like I talk about Google AdWords frequently. There is a reason for that. Advertising using Google AdWords just plain works. Those of you using Google AdWords already know the benefits. This blog post is for those still not taking advantage of a very powerful, cost-effective advertising medium.

For the last few years, I have been writing (some may say, evangelizing) about using Google AdWords, and extolling its benefits. Since a significant number of our clients are not using AdWords, I obviously don’t convey the message well enough. Now, don’t get me wrong. We have many clients who enjoy the benefits of AdWords in increased, targeted traffic driven to their website for a budgeted amount that they control. They see quantifiable results. They know exactly how many people were delivered to specific pages on their websites, and the keywords their visitors used to get there. If they are also using Google Analytics and the the two accounts are linked, they know much more about their visitors. There are not many other ways to get self-qualified, quantifiable traffic to look at a specific product or service you offer, and at the advertising cost you choose.

Why use Google AdWords?

• Control Cost – You set your daily budget, set your maximum per click for single keywords, or by ad group
• Pay only for results – You’re charged only if someone clicks your ad, not when your ad is displayed.
• Local and regional targeting – Target by country, state, city, regions, or custom areas (set a radius of 10 or more miles from a point on the map)
• Local ads – Help potential customers find you by showing a business address with your AdWords text ads. You can show your location to people searching for local information on Google.com and Google Maps.

Enhance your adds with these Ad Extensions

• Site Links - your ad could look like this:

• Address – display your address to increase local traffic
• Phone – just list your phone number, or use phone extensions to enable “Click-to-Call“
• Products -  extend ads with relevant product details and photos from Google Merchant Center (a way for you to register your company and its list of products with Google).

I have just scratched the surface with this blog post of what Google AdWords and we at WebWise can do for you. If you are serious about driving self-qualified, targeted traffic to your website, please email adwords@webwisedesign.com or give us a call at 1-800-281-9993 or 608-822-3750.

It is no great revelation that keywords are essential in getting your website to rank higher in Google search results. That said, too often not enough attention is paid to keyword research. Knowing the queries people actually use, is integral in getting the visitors you want to your website

Now, the folks at Google are going to tell you to just write good copy that your potential visitors find compelling, and your rankings will take care of themselves. While that is true in a perfect world, it isn’t quite that simple.

Of course there are may factors (Google’s Matt Cutts says 200+ “signals”) that dictate where your listing shows up on Google’s search results pages, and the keywords on your web pages are only part of it. The fact is, they play a very big role.

Why is keyword research important? Well, your visitors won’t get to your website so they can read your “compelling copy” unless it contains the keywords your potential visitors use when they do a search on Google, or other search engine. Your web pages may have “compelling copy” as far as you are concerned, but are you thinking about the same keywords as your potential visitors? Keyword research can help you figure that out.

Where to start? Write your compelling copy, and then read it out loud. How does it sound? Did you or your audience hear keywords you believe potential visitors would use to find your products or services?

Make a list of keywords you believe identify your products or services. Ask for input from co-workers, customers, friends, your barber, or hair dresser.

Take a good look at the list. Are all or some of those keywords on your website? Remember, Google sells relevance. Your pages should be product or service-specific, as should your keywords. The wrong keywords may get visitors to your website, but those visitors may not stay, because they were looking for something you don’t offer. Your goal should be to attract self-qualified visitors (leads, prospects) that want or need what you offer.

Okay, let’s see if anyone actually searches for your keywords. Google has a good free tool (Google Keyword Tool) for you to use. It is geared toward those who are using, or may use, Google AdWords. You do not have to have an AdWords account to use the keyword tool. It will show how much competition there is for your keywords, global monthly searches, local monthly searches, and more. You may do a simple search, or they’ll give you more options than you will care to deal with. Keep it simple. You just want to see if people really are searching using your keywords.

If your keywords have a lot of search volume, you should use Google Trends, where you can search for two terms, e.g. lake property, lakefront property, and you’ll see charts showing the relative search volume (more people search for lake property). You can filter the results by date, regions, cities, etc.

There are non-Google tools out there as well. A very good one is the Free Keyword Suggestion Tool From Wordtracker. Another is WordStream’s Free Keyword Tool.

There is a great deal more to say about keywords, and we’ll discuss them again. Hopefully, this will give you an understanding of the importance of choosing the right keywords. One of America’s favorite authors knew something about choosing the right words when he said, “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” Oh, that author if you are wondering, was Mark Twain.

Go to work and make that keyword list today! Edit that compelling copy to contain your researched keywords, and get results!

1. Use Google AdWords

We always suggest to our new clients that they use Google AdWords to jump-start the new web presence. (It is also a good marketing tool for a redesigned website or doing a new product launch, among other things.)

An inexpensive Google AdWords campaign gets your name, along with a description you control, at or near the top of search results pages and can keep it there while your individual pages get indexed and, if they are created properly with good content, starting earning their way up the organic listing rankings in Google.

2. Use Twitter

We announce all new websites we launch for our clients. Those “tweets” show up in Google very quickly. In fact, it happens sometimes in seconds and always in a very few minutes. The URL in that tweet gets indexed as well. There is no waiting for Google to “discover” your website from a link on another website or from your sitemap.xml (ask your webmaster if you have a sitemap.xml). In the example, I did the search about 70 minutes after using Twitter to annouce the launch.

Even though we tweet about our client websites, we highly recommend that they, and others, use Twitter to get news of their website, not only to those in the Twitter universe, but to Google as well. It only takes a quick tweet and delivers a lot of benefit.

Summary: Google AdWords and Twitter, Two quick ways to jump-start your new website in Google search engine results pages.