How to set up your hotel AdWords account (in 15 minutes)

In the weeks ahead, I’ll be sharing some advanced pay per click advertising techniques. But before we head into that, we need to start at square one.

Whether you decide to run the PPC campaign yourself or delegate management to a professional, you need to begin by setting up a Google AdWords account for your hotel. The process is quite simple:

Step 1: Account registration

Visit the Google AdWords website, and click the “Start now” button.

Step 2: Starter or Standard?

For brand new PPC advertisers, Google offers a simplified starter edition. If you need more flexibility with your campaign – or plan to use professional management – select the standard edition instead. (Not sure which to use? See Google’s comparison chart.)

Step 3: Select your target language

This can be changed later, but select the language your potential guests are most likely to use.

Step 4: Choose your geographic targeting

Depending on your marketing strategy, you could choose to show ads worldwide or just in your local region. (Read how geo-targeting can improve your profits)

Step 5: Write your ad

This is not permanent, and does not have to take long. The ad you create now can just serve as a placeholder until you go back re-write it. Follow the instructions and create a 25-letter headline, 70-letter description, then your website URL.

Step 6: Choose your keywords

Keywords are the phrases you want your ad to appear for on Google searches. Again, you can (and should) come back to this step, so for now just use a couple basic terms that describe your hotel.

Step 7: Enter your billing information

Select the currency you want to use, along with your maximum spending budget for each month. Google provides three billing options: postpay with a credit or debit card (ads show immediately), postpay by direct debit (ads show after authorization is complete), and prepay (ads run after Google receives the payment).

That’s it! Your campaign is now ready to run.

What next?

For best results, you’ll want to develop the campaign further once your account is set up. You can refer to our hotel PPC management flowchart for that process.

Next week, I’ll share the secrets behind writing compelling pay-per-click ad copy. Stay tuned…