Google AdWords™ For Dummies®, 3rd Edition

Sizing Up Your Online Market

Begin your market discovery process at www.google.com without being signed into your Google account. If you see your e-mail address at the top right of the search results page, click the down arrow next to the e-mail address and select Sign Out from the drop down list. Google personalizes search results, and you can minimize the effect and therefore get a better sense of what the search results page looks like to others by searching anonymously.

You're looking for three data points:

• Is anyone advertising for your keywords?
• Does Google show organic results that relate to your product or service?
• What sort of keyword does Google think it is?

Enter a keyword that someone searching for your business would type. Select a common keyword for best results: For example, iPad sleeve is better than RPT non-newtonian fluid-based protective sleeve for iPad 2 because more people are searching for it and more advertisers are bidding on it.

After you conduct your search, look for the ads. Figure 4-1 shows a robust advertiser presence, with three text ads above the shopping results and organic listings, three product ads at the top of the right column, and four more text ads visible at the bottom right. That many advertisers means that this keyword almost certainly represents a viable search market.

Figure 4-1: Start your market research with Google's own search results.

You want to see at least three relevant ads from competitors. Don't just count them, though; ...