Google Adwords?

[bitingfly]

What are some things to know about before using Google Adwords to advertise? What are the pros and cons?

[M P]

Pablo is absolutely correct. Another thing is you have to figure your advertising budget so you do not end up owing for ads that do not pay off. Start with a strong keyword (Overture is a good place to find ones and also Google will allow you to use their keyword builder and make a list for yourself. I would maybe use just one/two words to begin with and try to keep your cost down. If they are your best words it should pay off. Keep in mind if your site does not have a good/strong page rank no one is going to see your listing anyway unless they go to the 2nd, 3rd or 4th page, etc. Do you go that deep when looking for something? Work on strengthening your page rank before you pay for ad words. Get on the first page with good optimization so you will retain that spot. Check your keywords, your meta tags, and headings, and robot.txt to make sure it is good. If you don't know there are sites that will do a free analysis. Without strong optimization you are really wasting your time & $$. Good Luck

[Daniel K]

You also need to learn good ads that people will click on and you should learn how to construct landing pages to lower your ad costs and increase your quality score and ad position. By far the best site I have found that teaches all of this is Wealthy Affiliate. The forum there is awesome. Whenever you get stuck or have a problem with something, experienced marketers help you out.

[Pablo.]

You need to figure out your target audience and choose keywords that they'll be into. Make your keywords match exactly what you're selling, don't waste your time with vague keywords, I can't emphasise it enough. The only people who are going to click the ads are people who are actually legitimately looking for a product like yours, there's no point just trying to pull in random traffic for the sake of it by making some ad that appeals to a large audience, because they're not going to end up buying whatever it is you're selling. GOOD KEYWORDS.

[guofang]

If you are a beginner, I would sugges that you might not want to go into adwords. It could be costly if you do not know how to use it wisely. You must also contantly monitor it closely.

[electric_sheep2000]

All those answers sum it up best, You want to target a market with your keywords and know how much you are willing to spend. It would be worthwhile to check out Perry Marshalls Definitive guide to adwords on amazon or check out his site perrymarshall.com, His testing and information are world leading and I genuinely believe he is the best source on this subject. My campaigns went from 0.75% CTR to over 3.00% on some keywords after reading his book.