Remember when Google AdWords was easy? Remember when all you needed was five minutes and a credit card to advertise to millions of people? Yes, those were the good old days, back in the early 2000s when Google launched its revolutionary pay-per-click (PPC) platform AdWords.

But in the 10 years since its launch, has Google AdWords become too complicated for SMBs?

It Wasn’t Always This Complicated

I’ve worked with AdWords accounts for over six years now. My first foray into PPC was a group project in my Internet marketing class. My team was handed a shiny American Express gift card worth $500 and told to create an AdWords campaign for a local company. We did some keyword research, wrote a few ads and unleashed our creation into the wild. To this day I don’t know if the project had a positive ROI for the company, but at that point in time, using AdWords was so easy five college kids with no experience could do it.

Adwords Editor(AE) can make managing an Adwords account a lot easier. If you haven’t discovered and starting using it yet, here are some Adwords Editor Tips and Tricks that might convince you to download that little program and start using it… They’ll also make you smile like the lady in the picture! We’ve found AE to be most handy in accomplishing these everyday tasks:

That sounds similar to my excuse for blogging! The fact is that I don’t make time as often as I should, and I am sorry about that! It all comes down to self-discipline, right? Well, maybe. If you work 60 hours a week, why would you want to discipline yourself to spend another hour working?

A lot of small business owners are tired after working 60 hours in a week and don’t want to do something they don’t enjoy. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard dentists, and other SMBs with websites say something like, “I just don’t have time to manage my Google Adwords account like I would like to, and like I know I need to.”

Wondering what you can do with Google’s Enhanced CPC Biddingsetting? I was too until after I watched Google’s webinar introducing the feature. Here are my notes from it:

What the heck is Enhanced CPC Bidding and why was this developed?

Yes! This logo was officially provided to us after we officially passed the tests, met the other criteria regarding amount of spend managed and amount of time managing accounts, and now

Get Found First is a Google Adwords Certified Partner!

Google used to have a Google Adwords Qualified Individual Status, and a Google Adwords Qualified Company, and for a few more months companies can rest on those laurels.

Have you ever set up a campaign for a client and got the question, “How much will I be paying each click?” How do you respond? Many times you might turn to Google’s Keyword Tool and look at CPC’s. But how accurate is Google’s Keyword Tool CPC estimator? We’ve taken a look at actual CPC’s from our clients and matched them up with what Google’s estimates.

As Adwords experts it is important for Get Found First to stay on top of changes in Google Adwords policy. A recent change that may affect your advertising pertains to pharmaceutical policy. Straight from the Google Adwords blog we learn:

Only VIPPS and CIPA certified pharmacies will be allowed to advertise
We’ve made the decision to further restrict the ads we accept for online pharmacy sites in the U.S. and Canada. Starting at the end of this month, Google AdWords will only accept ads from online pharmacies in the U.S. that are accredited by the National Association Boards of Pharmacy VIPPS program, and from online pharmacies in Canada that are accredited by the Canadian International Pharmacy Association (CIPA.)

About 10 years ago I had a buddy who used Google for his searches… I found it interesting that he wasn’t using Yahoo, AltaVista, or MSN. The Google page only had a place to search, no entertainment news, no email services, etc. I just didn’t understand what it was that he liked and millions of people like today. What was it that he liked? Relevancy. When he searched for something he found exactly what he wanted in the first results.