Want prospects to click on your Denver small business ad? Of course you do. Well a recent report by Chitika shows that Bing users are much more likely to click on ads than Google search engine users. Bing users clicked on ads 1.67% of the time - Google users just 1.09% of the time. This percentage puts Bing users higher than both Yahoo and Google users - although lower than users of AOL and ASK.com search engines - who both have much higher click rates (2.48% and 2.92% respectively).

Why are Bing Users More Likely to Click?

Well, this is just one study - from one ad platform provider. It should be taken with a grain of salt. That said, reasons for the higher clicks could be due to Microsoft's intense focus on users who are looking to make purchases - a theory promoted by the article. It could also be that the Bing organic (free) search results aren't as relevant as Google search results. There is also a theory that the users of other search engines are less sophisticated than Google users and are more likely to click on ads.

How Does This Help Me Market My Denver Small Business?

As a Denver small business owner, it is good to be aware of where your marketing dollars are going and how much return you're getting on your ad spend. With Bing search ads getting ready to appear on the Yahoo search engine, it is particularly important to be aware of click trends like this. However, this click data must be put into context.

Assume for a moment that Bing ads are clicked more than Google ads - there are two reasons why this doesn't mean that you should invest your ad budget in Bing first - and Google second. First, Google dominates search. Even if proportionally Bing will bring you more visitors - even with the addition of Yahoo search, ads through Microsoft's adCenter platform will still only reach less than 30% of all searches. Second, clicks are great - you need clicks to have people visit your website so you can promote your products and services. But ultimately, it is all about converting those prospects into clients. You need to look at the ad spend as well as the revenue from each search platform.

My Advice to Denver Small Business Owners

Start with Google AdWords. Get your campaign running efficiently. Get a solid ROI. Then migrate your campaign over to Microsoft adCenter. By starting with Google, you'll learn a lot about your market and your prospects for success quickly. Once you have everything running efficiently, move on to adCenter platform.

I found this post from Search Engine Journal particularly interesting. Thanks to Gab Goldenberg for putting it together and inspiring this blog post.  The title "Is Google AdWords Advertising Itself Honestly?". The post attacks certain Google AdWords claims including that you can get started in minutes.

Become a Champion Boxer in Minutes!

Google's claim that you can get started in minutes is 100% true in my opinion. It is easy enough to set up an ad and web page quickly. I also believe that you could get started as a boxer in minutes. Head down to the gym, put on some gloves and give your local Golden Gloves champ a lesson. Getting started actually wasn't so hard, was it?

Unfortunately, in both cases, the outcome is the same. You will leave the arena - real or virtual - bloodied and discouraged. Just because you can get started with something in minutes doesn't make it a good idea to go ahead and jump into it.

The claim about getting started in minutes is probably made to draw contrast to other forms of advertising - like yellow pages, direct mail and tv. There is a long lead time getting media ready and working through the distribution channels for these alternate forms of advertising. With Google, you can in fact have your ads running in literally minutes.

AdWords is a Mature Advertising Platform - Be Prepared

The fact is that Google AdWords is a very mature advertising platform. Many - if not most of the advertisers that you're likely to go up against have been advertising on AdWords for quite some time - more than just a few minutes. You need to spend time and do your research up front or else you will lose a lot of money very quickly. You must have the following in place get your return on investment - (the article mentions many of these):

• Keyword Research
• Lead Capture Mechanisms
• Analytics Tracking
• Conversion Tracking
• Tight Ad Groups
• Effective Matching - especially negatives
• Compelling Ad Copy
• Ad Copy Testing Mechanisms

The most entertaining - and enlightening - part of the article was this quote:

AdWords: The Most Cost Effective Advertising Available

Google AdWords is at the core of the marketing services that I provide my clients. It is highly effective and provides a great ROI for my Denver small business clients. That said, it isn't necessarily an instant or easy implementation. It usually takes significant time to get a new online ad campaign and associated landing pages off of the ground - probably a week or two in most cases to do it right. AdWords is complex enough that hiring an expert is advisable to make it effective for your Denver small business.

How Does This Help Me Market My Denver Small Business?

I highly recommend that every Denver small business owner investigate - and most likely use - Google AdWords to bring clients to their Denver business. AdWords is a mature advertising platform full of competitors who know exactly what they're doing. You can burn through a lot of money quickly if you aren't careful. Many advertisers become discouraged and abandon the platform before realizing the positive impact that AdWords can have on their business. It isn't easy, but you must know what you're doing to get achieve a positive ROI.

AdWords Resources for Beginners

I was recently contacted by a local startup who was interested in online marketing but didn't have the budget to get started with my services. I told her that AdWords was by far the quickest way to learn about demand for services and get new clients.

For Denver small business owners, outsourcing the majority of your online marketing activities - including AdWords is a wise choice. It will let you focus on your core business. For small business owners working on a low budget, here are some resources that can help you get started with Google AdWords.

• Google AdWords Beginner's Guide - Google's own online guide
• Google AdWords for Dummies - by Howie Jacobson. I'm not generally a big fan of the Dummies books, but this provides a great overview
• Advanced Google AdWords - by Brad Geddes. The best book out there for AdWords, but probably a bit too hardcore for pure beginners.
• PPC Blog - the PPC Blog is about pay-per-click advertising
• Search Engine Journal's PPC Section

2nd Quarter Click Fraud dipped slightly from record levels in the first quarter of 2010 accoring to an Anchor Intelligence report cited by a blog post at Search Engine Land. According to the article, click fraud remains high due to automated bots, as well as the exploitation of security vulneratbilities. While click fraud dipped slightly (from 29.2% to 28.9%) - it still remains much higher than it was last year. And attempted click fraud in the United States leads all nations at over 34%.

Click Fraud can inflate an advertiser's advertising budget by forcing them to pay for what are essentially invalid clicks. This can affect advertisers who are advertising on both the search and the content networks. Google AdWords has tools in place to try to prevent invalid clicks and automatically prevent advertisers from being charged for clicks which Google deems to be invalid. Back in May, I provided a detailedclick fraud overview.

How Does This Help Me Market My Denver Small Business?

Most Denver small businesses should seriously explore advertising online - in spite of the risk of click fraud. Google does have measures in place to protect advertisers, but you can't completely rely on the advertising platform to protect you. As the advertiser, you need to monitor the clicks yourself - or hire someone to monitor your campaign for you - to ensure that no suspcious activity is occurring with your account. According to the research study, 1/3 of clicks are fraudulent - this of cousre means that you could be wasting 33% (or more) of your advertising budget on fraudulent clicks.

If you do detect click fraud, there are a number of actions that you can take. If you're using placement targeting and notice that you're experiencing what appear to be fraudulent clicks, either stop targeting that website with your ads or appeal to Google. Likewise, if you're advertising on the search or display network, monitor clicks and report any suspicious activity to Google so that your advertising budget doesn't get decimated.

From the Google AdWords Blog, Google has recently announced that they have officially rolled out the new broad match keyword modifier.. The broad match keyword modifier fits in somewhere between phrase match and broad match. The modifier allows you to more precisely target your prospective audience with broad match - while providing a greater potential audience than is possible with phrase match or exact match.

How the Broad Match Modiifer Works

In order to effectively use the broad match modifier, you can go ahead and put a + in front of the keywords you would like to participate in the modified broad match. Words that have the modifier must have that keyword in the search phrase as an exact match - or a close variant.

In the example below, these would be keywords that would be appropriate for another website of mine - Denver Website Maintenance:

Above are the appropriate uses for the broad match modiifer. The first keyword phrase will likely match for website and web site but will allow more broad matching for maintenance. So, a potential matches for the phrase would be web site updates or website changes. The last keyword phrase requires the strictest form of matching as each of the keywords contains the modifier.

How Does This Help Me Market My Denver Small Business?

If you are managing your own Adwords campaigns, the broad match modifier will help you to more accurately target your search campaigns to your audience. Google recommends using your broad match modifiers simultaneously with broad match - rather than using it to replace broad match. This would be an area to experiment with - depending on your ad campaigns, modified broad match keywords could certainly replace broad match in many instances.

The time may arrive when you realize that you need to focus on your core business and you need help from an outside expert to help manage your AdWords account. This blog post covers the simple steps required to allow someone else to administer your AdWords account.

1) My Accounts Tab

You must first be logged into AdWords, then as shown above, you will go to the "My Account" tab and select "Account Access".

2) Invite Other Users

You'll notice that an "Account Access" screen opens up. Click on the "Invite Other Users" button.

3) Enter User Information

Enter the user's email address, name, and access level. When completed, click on "Send Invitation". The user will receive an email to act on from Google Adwords.

A Note about Account Access:
There are three levels of Access to your account: administrative, standard, and read only. When you need someone to manage your account, you will usually choose the standard access level. The Google AdWords help describes each of the access levels in detail here. A summary of the access levels is provided below.

Summary of the AdWords Access Levels:

• Administrative - Edit all parts of the account and campaigns (except login). Also provides access to Google Analytics. You can also invite others to manage the account.
• Standard - Same as administrative access except you can't control access ot the account.
• Read Only - Used for reporting only - no real capabilities to modify the account.