Google – now too expensive for small businesses?

Google AdWords is a growing service which allows you to advertise to people who are searching on Google for a product or service.

AdWords works on a pay per click basis; in other words, you only pay when someone clicks onto your advert. You don’t even need a website to do it. You can set your own keywords, set your own budget and decide where your advert will be displayed. When someone goes into Google and carries out a search using keywords that you have entered into your ad, your advert may appear next to the search results. Sounds great – you could quite literally be seen by millions.

Google is now the most widely used search engine in the world by a large margin, which means that more and more people are likely to see your ad and click on it. Fantastic news! Or so it should be. However, if you are paying a cost per click (CPC) then this could potentially snowball and run up into amounts which some small businesses are unable to afford. Then you get the bill and you had no idea that it was going to cost you so much, despite having capped your ceiling limit.

For every click on your ad, you are paying for it. However, not every click will translate into business for you and so you may not be getting a profitable return on your investment (ROI) – and ROI is what advertising is all about. If it’s costing you more to advertise than you are making in sales from it, then it’s not working as it should be.

In effect, therefore, Google AdWords could be having the reverse effect of what its intentions were in the first place and could be discouraging small businesses; in turn, leaving room for the larger companies to grow even further because they are better able to absorb the costs of this type of advertising.

Then there is the potential for abuse. With every good idea, there is always someone behind it who has the mastermind to turn good into bad. Click fraud is becoming more and more prevalent and there is the risk of being scammed by the system that is supposed to be helping you.

In addition to all of this, some less tech-savvy people may find AdWords too much of a minefield. Although relatively straightforward to get started, it takes time to make best use of the system and to compete with the bigger fish. Some larger organisations actually pay members of staff to do this sort of advertising on a full-time basis and so they are experts in the subject. The likelihood is that the small businesses which will benefit from AdWords the most are those which are selling a unique service or product and whose keywords are most effective.

Do your homework is the best advice. Use an integrated approach to advertising and don’t just rely on one source. Practice makes perfect but make sure that you are comfortable with using AdWords and understand the pros and cons before getting started.

Copyright © Peter Moore 2009 - Co-Founder of EzWeb123.com