You probably already know that Google Grants gives qualified nonprofits free advertising in the form of Google Adwords, those little ads that appear on the right side of Google search results. (You should: we cover it often enough!) Crafting a great ad could help raise awareness about your organization's programs. But do you know how to get the most out of your grant? Or should you...

> Register for our Beginner Webinar Series: Learning to Use and Maximize Your Google Grant

The Google Grants team has announced their very first grantee conference, to be held in early August at Google HQ in Mountain View. That's right: you'll get to learn how to maximize your AdWords account while visiting the mothership.

From the Google Grants blog:

During the event, grantees will have an opportunity to learn tips and tricks from successful grantees, attend AdWords seminars taught by in-house experts, and learn how to maximize Google for Non-Profits products. Our goal is to provide content for a diverse mix of attendees with different interest areas, locales, sizes, and levels of AdWords experience. In the typical Google spirit of making information accessible and useful, we will record this event and post the videos online after. So, even if you aren't able to attend, you won't miss a thing.

But are they running an AdWords campaign to promote the event?

Due to limited space, they're going to hold a lottery to select the invitees. You need to enter the lottery by June 30th, so I give you permission to hurt our bounce rate by going to sign up right now.

Flickr Photo: thelearnrOver the weekend, I encountered a new phenomenon: AdWords squatting. I met a guy trying to develop a business around finding obscure, but potentially lucrative search terms, building up a quality AdWords presence for them, then, presumably, selling the rights. His best success so far was -- and I cannot make this kind of stuff up -- "adult incontinence".

This is the mindset we're competing against with our Google Grants accounts.

Go search for "polar bear" on Google. You'll find ads from the NWF and Defenders of Wildlife up against ads for travel services for polar bear-based tourism.

Google's not going to give us top placement just because we're trying to do good, so join us for our Advanced Google Grants webinar series, "Maximizing Your Grant To Meet Your Organization's Goals", to learn best practices from the Google Grants team.

> Learn more and register today!

Maren, German, and Kristie, Google Grants

On the Google Grants team, we receive a lot of questions from grantees on how best to evaluate their AdWords performance. We put this article together to give guidance around monitoring and evaluating your Google Grants account using a few strategies we find valuable. We hope you do, too!

Every Adwords user out there can agree on one thing: there's no one answer when it comes to Adwords. Making your campaign work for your organization can seem one part sweat, one part knowledge, one part pixie dust. But how do you make pixie dust, anyway?

The folks at Google have been more than generous in sharing that recipe with the NTEN crowd. Not only do they give NTEN members priority treatment for new Google Grants accounts, they've also shared their Adwords secrets in our Adwords webinar series. (Shhh. We're doing more in the spring!)

At the 2009 NTC, Google's own nonprofit Tinkerbell, Kristie Ferketich, will share her pixie dust formulas in her session, "Hey Buddy, Can You Spare $1: Effective Strategies to Maximize Google Grants". I got to talk to her about that session, some of the other Google goodness at the NTC, and her favorite San Francisco place, Dolores Park:

To publicize our CMS and CRM Vendor Satisfaction Reports, we tried including, in an AdWords campaign, the names of the software covered in the reports -- "Plone", "Drupal", "Salesforce", and so on. For 2 days, our impressions shot into the thousands. On day 3, it dropped to, oh, 36, 37 per day, and there was a message from Google that said, basically: "Your clickthrough performance is too anemic to be worthy of these keywords, so we've turned them off. Please increase your bid or improve your CTR."

Aaaaand they're still turned off.

So, I'm looking forward to our upcoming webinar, "Optimizing Keywords in AdWords", the 2nd in our series on AdWords, presented by some wonderful people on the Google Grants team.

We at NTEN love us some Google Grants. After a little trial and error, our complimentary AdWords account now provides nearly 5% of our total site traffic, almost all of it new to our community. Okay, a lot of trial and error. And some grumbling. And maybe a little cursing. If only we scheduled our webinars to meet our internal learning needs!

Our upcoming webinar series on Google Adwords, to be presented by members of the Google Grants team, promises to take a lot of the mystery out of a system that only appears simple.

> Learn more and register today!

Who isn't looking to drive more traffic to their web sites? Google AdWords is one of the most effective ways to do just that. And, thanks to the Google Grants Program, qualifying nonprofits can employ this marketing tool for free.

Following the enormous success of our webinar on Google Analytics, NTEN nabbed Google AdWords Evangelist Frederick Vallaeys for a two-part series on AdWords.

> Join us on Tuesday, October 16th, for "Introduction to Google AdWords", when we'll explore how Google AdWords works and learn the basics of running a campaign, including:

• Understanding the elements of an AdWords Campaign
• Selecting keywords and writing copy
• Setting pricing
• Tracking the results

> Register Today for "Introduction to Google AdWords"

> Come back on Thursday, October 18th, for "Advanced Google AdWords", to learn the tips and tricks that will make your AdWords campaigns hum:

• Improving your ad and keywords
• Managing multiple campaigns effectively
• Preparing effective landing pages

> Register Today for "Advanced Google AdWords"!

 

When: Tuesday & Thursday, October 16th & 18th, 11 am PT / 2 pm ET

Cost: $25 for NTEN Members, $50 for non-members (per webinar)

Presented by: Frederick Vallaeys, Google AdWords Evangelist

NTEN Members: Don't forget that if you renew with NTEN right now, you'll receive a $25 coupon good toward your next event registration. Renew your membership today and attend this webinar for free!