Google - An Introduction

Where better to start than to talk about the services that Google offer? I won't go into them all now as there are a lot and the list is growing all of the time. I'll talk about some of their specific services in more depth later on, and I'll also post when something new appears from Google that might be of interest to small businesses. Let's start with the basics for now...

In the old days Google's two main products were Adwords and Adsense:

Adwords
Adwords allows advertisers to promote their websites in an extremely cost-effective way by displaying small text ads against specific search-phrases on Google and next to relevant content on other sites. Advertisers pay on a cost-per-click basis and the price paid is dependent on the competitiveness of the search phrases that you choose. You can limit the maximum you are prepared to pay per-click and the maximum you are prepared to spend per day so it can suit even the smallest budgets. The system takes some learning if you are new to it, but they have oodles of help pages to walk you through it if you want to do it yourself. Alternatively you could use the services of a Google Adwords Professional (a "GAP"), a group of Google qualified Adwords specialists (of which I am one). A GAP should know how best to organise your Adwords account to optimise activity including budgets, reach and Return on Investment. Adwords can generate a lot of very profitable sales, depending on the business you are in, and when that happens people tend to want to spend a lot of money on advertising more which is why Google generates so much advertising revenue. It works. Extremely well.

Adsense
Adsense is a system that allows website owners to monetise their visitors by displaying Adwords ads next to their own content. The ads are relevent to the content on the site so they are more likely to be of interest to their users and hence they are responsive and produce good results. When set up, this can provide a steady income as Google shares the ad revenue with you, the publisher. Obviously the amount you earn it depends on many factors, most notably the amount of traffic you have and the industry that you are in.

These two products offer two opportunities to small businesses...

If you sell anything online, Adwords is certainly for you. And if you don't it is probably still for you as it is one of the most qualified and low-cost ways of promoting your website and brining in new visitors.

If you have a website with a lot of content and visitors, Adsense can generate you income. There are other ways to do this (e.g. affiliate schemes, advertising, sponsorship, etc.) and what works best for you is a question of economics - which brings in more money per visitor - and that means testing or running more than one strategy simultaneously.