Almost every business I meet wants more leads.  They want more leads quickly, and with the least effort and cost.  It is, for many business owners the reason their website exists – and their number one priority is driving more leads from Google.

Google search results fall into two categories - paid search results (or sponsored links) and natural search results (one’s you can’t pay for).

I’m going to start with paid search results, these are the ones that appear in a Google search at the top of the screen and to the right.  They’re boxed out, to draw your attention to them, and they’re hugely important to Google.  Adwords, which is the program that puts paid results onto a search page, is how Google make their money.

Website owners can pay to appear in the sponsored links section, by using Adwords.  You get to chose the text to display in searches, what keywords you want to sponsor, what geographical area they appear in, and how much you want to spend.  What’s great about Adwords is that you only pay when someone clicks on your advert.  If no-one clicks you don’t pay a penny.  So your ad can be shown 100,000 times a day, but if you only get 100 clicks, you only pay 100 times - hence why this form of advertising is called Pay-per-click.

The key to getting a good ranking in the sponsored links section is to be willing to pay more than anyone else for your keywords in your area.  Adwords is a kind of auction, if all your competitors are willing to pay 75p per click and you are willing to pay 80p, you’ll zoom to the top of the list.

That’s fine if your business is in a search space that’s not too expensive.  But if you’re in the insurance or financial services game, then you better have deep pockets for Adwords or any sort of pay-per-click.

If you’d like to get started in Google Adwords, then why don’t you ping us an email.  We’re part of the Google Engage for Agencies program so we’ve always got a ready supply of vouchers from our friends at Google that give you free advertising spend when you initially sign up for Adwords.