Many businesses we talk to shun Google AdWords because they don’t want to pay for traffic. We generally find that’s because they tried AdWords halfheartedly in the past without following The 10 Commandments of Google AdWords. Oddly enough, though, they’re often willing to pay an SEO agency like us to help them earn organic traffic.

But guess what? Earning clicks from SEO and paying for clicks using Google AdWords are not opposite approaches. The best approach is to use the two, organic and paid traffic, to inform and improve each other. AdWords lets you gain clicks to your website fast, while SEO takes longer and can benefit from the lessons you learn in your AdWords campaigns first.

In this video, we discuss how to use SEO data from Google Search Console to create more strategic Google Ads.

Ready to learn more?

Ask many small business owners about online ads, and you might hear something like this:

“I tried AdWords, but it just didn’t work for me.”

Or worse still, perhaps they bought ads from Yelp and received little to no return on ad spend (ROAS). Then they threw up their hands despairingly and concluded that Internet ads are no good.

(Protip: Never buy Yelp ads.)

Here’s the thing: most people don’t use AdWords correctly because, admittedly, it’s not 100% intuitive without some understanding of Internet marketing and search engine traffic. Even when you do have a working knowledge of those things, it’s not always simple to maximize AdWords to its full potential.

But on the other hand, if you do use AdWords correctly, it can be a terrific channel. Here’s how to do it right. If Charlton Heston were here today, these are the commandments he would have for you.

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You shouldn’t spend money on digital marketing unless you have the proper analytics set up to measure the results. But what if customers aren’t buying something directly from your website like they would on an e-commerce store?

For local businesses, a conversion is usually when a lead contacts them. This can be through:

• a contact form
• a phone call
• an email
• a scheduled appointment

Luckily, it’s possible to track these website actions. Yes! It can be done with the power of an amazing free tool called Google Tag Manager (GTM).

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Huge thanks to Wegner CPAs for hosting us at their Wake Up With Wegner event at the Sheraton on John Nolan Drive. We spoke on “How to Measurably Grow Your Business Through Online Search,” touching on pro tips, strategy and tactics for SEO, Google AdWords campaigns and Google Analytics set up and tracking.

Here’s a video re-recording in case you missed or would like to brush up.

Top Google AdWords tips for Pay Per Click (PPC) Campaigns

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