Google AdWords™ For Dummies®, 3rd Edition

Chapter 4

Sizing Up Your Online Market

In This Chapter

• Assessing the size of your market
• Milking the Google Keyword Tool
• Creating keyword buckets
• Running bucket test campaigns to validate a market

Google touts AdWords as a way to get more visitors to your website. But that traffic — as valuable as it can be — is just the tip of the proverbial AdWords iceberg. Because running tests in AdWords can be so cheap, quick, and easy, you can dip your toe into a market and discover whether it has potential with almost no risk or up-front investment. And, just as important, you can leverage your test results into improved performance in other media. In this chapter, we show you how to do initial keyword research, set up your own quick-and-dirty traffic tests, and validate the existence of a market.

Although you can learn a lot about a market by using free online tools, the best data comes from buying small amounts of AdWords traffic in order to discover things you could never learn any other way. You want to know whether your keywords, ads, and landing pages are effective before opening the AdWords floodgates (and your wallet), as well as before spending time and money to optimize your web pages for the organic, “free” traffic. This simple preparation will also guide you as you structure your AdWords account and expand its reach.