Click. The AdWords newsletter: May 2011

Your website is your face to online customers - are you greeting them at the door with a smile? Your site should engage with new customers, make it easy for them to find your product or service, and maybe earn you a little extra revenue. This month we share some quick strategies to help you get the full value from your website. Happy reading! The Google AdWords team P.S. Have some feedback about this newsletter? Please let us know what you think. In this Issue MAY 2011, VOL 3 MONTHLY FEATURE Make the most of your website ADWORDS INSIGHT You make the rules SMALL BUSINESS SUCCESS Maximize income GOOGLE HIGHLIGHTS Anatomy 101 Your AdWords Account   MONTHLY FEATURE Make the most of your website You already know that an online presence is an important tool for building your business. Indeed, advertisers often ask us what they can do to improve their websites. We talked to some of the experts here at Google and they offered these suggestions: Learn the basic rules of an effective site Whether you're a tech expert or a novice, here are some simple design tips to help you create a compelling site: Pass the 8 second test. A visitor should understand the purpose of your website within a few seconds. Tell them what's in it for them. Highlight tangible benefits that potential customers can gain from your product or service. Will they be able to save money? Time? Buy a one-of-a-kind gift? Use compelling images. Help visitors to your site take the steps towards making a purchase. Make those steps clear and easy to reach. Don't guess... test! Which image or call to action will lead to more sales on your website? Free tools like Google's Website Optimizer make it easy to test different versions of your site and view the results. Can you tell which webpage version below performed better? Version A Version B Universal Technical Institute redesigned their website using Website Optimizer, and saw a 300% increase in conversion rates (read more). Make extra money from your site Your site's most important job is to promote your business and make it easy for potential customers get the info or product they want. But you can also make extra revenue by using Google AdSense to show relevant ads on your wesbite. It's free and quick to set up (you can even use your AdWords account to sign in).   ADWORDS INSIGHT You make the rules We know you're busy, so we've created a new AdWords feature to save you valuable time—Automated Rules. With Automated Rules, you can tell your account what to do in advance. For example: you can set your budget to be higher on peak shopping days and lower during the rest of the week. You can also automatically change your bids for keywords based on their click-through or conversion rates. Ready to try it? Visit our Help Center to watch a quick video about Automated Rules or to get detailed instructions with screenshots. Set a Rule Now     SMALL BUSINESS SUCCESS Maximize income TeAch-nology.com, a web portal for teachers, found a hidden source of revenue on their website. A longtime AdWords advertiser, founder Paul McKee noticed his ads showing on other education sites, and was impressed with how well the ads matched the content. He wanted to try showing ads on TeAch-nology.com as well, to explore how much revenue he could earn. He tried Google AdSense, a free, easy way to earn revenue by showing relevant ads alongside online content.  McKee found that AdSense ads drove 8 times more revenue than other forms of contextual advertising did. AdSense now accounts for 50 percent of company income. "We don't have a full-time ad sales team," McKee noted. "AdSense takes care of itself, allowing us to focus on running our business." Read more about using AdSense to complement your AdWords account, and see if you can maximize revenue from your online content.   GOOGLE HIGHLIGHTS Anatomy 101 You may be used to zooming in and out on Google Maps to discover the world around you, from a neighborhood park to a hotel across the country. With Google body browser, an educational tool from Google labs, you can explore the human body in the same way. Start off with a clickable, rotatable, 3-d image of a person. Drag down the slider to see layers of the human anatomy revealed: muscle tissue, bones, organs and nerves. Wondering what that femur you broke while ice skating looks like? Use the search box, which lets you find and highlight specific parts of the body.     YOUR ADWORDS ACCOUNT ADWORDS RESOURCES     Sign in Now AdWords Online Classroom Inside AdWords Blog AdWords Seminars AdWords Help Center

Posted by Jenn Karakkal, AdWords Small Business Team

Click. The AdWords newsletter: April 2011

The world has gone mobile. From smartphones to tablets, mobile devices are quickly becoming the best way for people to find products and services when they're on the go. Read on to learn about how you can take advantage of the mobile opportunity with AdWords and drive mobile customers to your business. Happy reading! The Google AdWords team P.S. Have some feedback about this newsletter? Please let us know what you think. In this Issue APRIL 2011, VOL 2 MONTHLY FEATURE A growing mobile opportunity ADWORDS INSIGHT Design a mobile-only campaign SMALL BUSINESS SUCCESS Bringing customers to the table GOOGLE HIGHLIGHTS Art Project Your AdWords Account   MONTHLY FEATURE A growing mobile opportunity In the past year alone, the number of Google mobile searches has quadrupled. In fact, by 2012, more people will connect via a mobile device than a computer.* How can your business benefit from this trend? Here are three ideas: Make it easy to call you People on the phone are looking for immediate answers. So it makes sense that many smartphone consumers call the businesses that they find after a mobile search. Encourage new customers to call you with AdWords Click-to-Call, which displays your business' phone number as an additional line of text on your ad. Google research shows that click-to-call ads drive a 6-8% average increase in clickthrough rates. Make it easy to find you, too! If you're a local business, mobile users are especially important, because one out of three searches on a mobile devices has local intent. And, according to a recent survey conducted by eMarketer, 58% of smartphone owners say they use their phone to find store locations. In AdWords, you can use Location Extensions to display your business' address and its location on a map. Once you have Location Extensions enabled, you can automatically take advantage of the new Hyperlocal feature. Hyperlocal shows your potential customers distance information, so they can see how close they are to your store! Customize your ads for the mobile user The eMarketer study also shows that people commonly use their phones to compare prices, find discounts and check product availability. Consider writing ads especially for smartphone users, keeping in mind what people want when they're on the go. You can actually create a separate AdWords campaign just for mobile. Check out AdWords Insight, below, for detailed instructions on how to do that. ADVANCED TIP: What happens when someone wants to find out more about your business, and clicks to your website? Does your website load quickly enough for smartphone users? Take a few moments to see if your website passes the test. If it doesn't, there are a range of options to help you optimize your website for mobile devices. *Source: Meeker, Mary; Morgan Stanley. "Ten Questions Internet Execs Should Ask & Answer." Business Insider.com, November 16, 2010.   ADWORDS INSIGHT Design a uniquely mobile campaign Google Research shows that mobile-only campaigns help drive higher mobile clickthrough rates—11.5% higher on average. Why? With a separate mobile campaign, you can set the bids, budgets, keywords and ad text that work best for mobile customers. Create a new campaign in your AdWords account. Find the "Networks and devices" section in your Campaign Settings, and under "Devices" click "Let Me Choose". Un-select "Desktop and laptop computers," so you are only targeting "Mobile devices with full Internet browsers." Select keywords and create ad text with your mobile customer in mind. Learn more about the benefits of a mobile-only campaign.   SMALL BUSINESS SUCCESS Bringing customers to the table Can your customers find you when they need you most? Roy's Restaurants shared the success of their hyperlocal mobile-only campaign: "Mobile searchers looking for dining options could effortlessly see how close they were to a nearby Roy's restaurant and the click-to-call function allowed for instant reservations." This campaign drove a 40% increase in calls, while the cost-per-click was 67% less than desktop ads. As a result, the campaign's overall return on investment was 800%—double the ROI of their blended mobile/desktop campaigns. Want to try it for your business? Learn about the strategies Roy's used.   GOOGLE HIGHLIGHTS Picture this with the Art Project Want to visit the world's most magnificent museums and masterpieces? Art Project, powered by Google—collaboration with 17 of the word's most acclaimed museums—lets you walk through museum wings to explore the world's most precious works of art. From Van Gogh's Starry Night to Botticelli's Birth of Venus, zoom in to discover striking details like brushstrokes and aging signs, all without leaving home.     YOUR ADWORDS ACCOUNT ADWORDS RESOURCES     AdWords Online Classroom Inside AdWords Blog AdWords Seminars AdWords Help Center

Posted by Jenn Karakkal, AdWords Small Business Team