Google AdWords™ for Dummies®, 2nd Edition

Introduction

Most business owners I meet have never heard of Google AdWords. My prediction: If you aren't advertising your business in Google within two years, you're not going to stay in business. The age of the Yellow Pages is ending, and online advertising — led by AdWords — is taking over.

For those who take the time to master this new advertising medium, it's an exciting time. AdWords represents a revolution in the advertising world. For the first time ever, businesses large and small can show their ads to qualified prospects anywhere in the world, when those prospects are hungriest for the business' products and services. AdWords allows fine geographic targeting, like a Yellow Pages ad, but (unlike the Yellow Pages) also allows advertisers to edit, pause, or delete their Google ads any time they like, in real time.

Unlike a traditional advertisement, Google ads cost money only when they are clicked — that is, when a live prospect clicks the ad to visit your site. And perhaps most important, AdWords enables advertisers to test multiple ads simultaneously and to track the return on investment of every ad and every keyword they employ.

Since a click can cost as little as a penny and each click can be tracked to a business outcome, even small, cash-strapped businesses can find AdWords an effective way to grow without betting the farm on untested marketing messages. Google's ads reach across the entire Internet. In addition to the 200 million Google searches per day (almost 60 percent ...