Mastering Traffic to Your Web Site Doesn't Have to Be a Mystery

Many online businesses failed because of a lack of advertising, or the incorrect use of advertising. To make sales, you have to get noticed, and many budding entrepreneurs just don't understand the basics of driving web traffic to their site. There are a variety of ways to attempt to accomplish that and many sites that specialize in it. Yahoo, MSN, and Google are 3 of the biggest.

Many people starting out have an aversion to paying for advertising because they may be on a "shoestring" budget and just don't understand the importance of paid advertising. Certainly there are "free" ways to try to advertise your site. You can place classified ads on various sites or use sites like Craigslist. But the truth is, to generate the kind of traffic you need to make sales, you need to put out some up front advertising dollars. The key is to make the best use of it.

Google AdWords provides tools at your fingertips that make stretching your ad dollars a lot easier.

First of all, make sure you are using the standard edition of AdWords (this is where you have access to the various tools you will need). Then go into CAMPAIGN Management and set up your campaign. A campaign is simply your advertising program. Select the keywords you want to use to get people to find your site.

The second thing you want to do is to select your campaign and click on "Edit Settings". Under "Budget Options" set your daily budget. This can be whatever you think you can afford. However, one thing to remember is that the more money you decide to spend on a daily basis, the more times Google is going to display your ad. Some people recommending setting your daily budget 5 to 10 times higher than what you really want to spend in order to get more displays. Just because your ad is displayed doesn't mean your ad will be clicked (you only pay if someone clicks on your ad). But remember, if you set your daily budget, that is what you could end up paying so it's important to monitor your campaign, especially in the beginning.

Under "Networks and Bidding" make sure you uncheck "the Content network" box. You do not need this in the beginning and will spend a lot of money with no results if you do not understand how to use that feature. TURN IT OFF!

Save your changes at the bottom of the screen and get ready for a really cool tool that Google has provided that will really fine tune your campaign. Click on your campaign and your Ad Group Name. Click the "edit" button under your Current Bid. This will display your default bid that you setup when you created your campaign and will display a lit of your keywords. At the bottom of the list you will see an "Estimate Search Traffic" button. Click it and voila! Now you can see the volume of your keyword and the estimated position of the ad in Google. Remember though that these are just estimates based on previous statistics accumulated by Google and you will need to adjust your bids and keywords to drive the most traffic to your ad, and consequently, to your web site.

And now a little trick that many users have never seen or failed to see the importance of it. To see the estimated traffic click the little link above your displayed keywords that says "Show total potential clicks in the table below". This little link provides valuable information...how many potential clicks you could receive during the day for each keyword, and how much it would cost.

You can set individual bids for each keyword so you will want to experiment raising or lowering your bids to see how much traffic you might generate for each keyword. If a keyword seems to be unproductive, then remove it. Try adding other keywords and see what results you get. Don't clutter your campaign with too many keywords though. Most experts believe that 25 or less is probably the best. I've found that even 10 or less can be quite effective.

In September, 2008 AdWords added a new feature also that removes the guessing game predicting how much it would cost to get your ad displayed on the first page. Now, under each keyword set up in a campaign will be a little blurb telling you exactly what to bid. That doesn't mean you have to do that. Some ads you may want to display on the front page to have the best conversion rate. Other ads may get a good conversion rate being on later pages. It's up to you and what you think is best.

If a keyword cost too much, then don't be afraid to bypass it for awhile. Because these are bids, sometimes competition from other Google AdWords users could drive the price of a keyword outside your budget. Be patient. It is very likely that after a day or two the price will come down and you can use it again. If you can spend a little more and get your ad displayed higher, then by all means try it out and see what results you get.

The key to success is to get the necessary traffic to your ad and then have people click on it. The higher your ad is placed in Google, the more likely it is to be clicked. And if they get to your web site, then your site can make the sale. No exposure. No sale. High exposure. Multiple sales. You've probably heard it said this way. "It's a numbers game." Nothing is truer in the sales business. Every good salesman knows he isn't going to close them all. But he expects a certain percentage of sales based on how many clients he sees. The same is true for business marketing on Google. The more clicks, the more sales.

* By using these few tips supplied here, you have the potential to jump start your business and start getting the sales that you want. Like anything, it takes some effort to learn how Google AdWords can be an effective tool for your business. But mastering Google AdWords is not difficult and doesn't take a long time. And it could definitely be worth it in the long run.