Google AdWords Takes You Online

Google has added hosted pages for businesses to its AdWords Starter Edition, as they aim for local companies that may not be online yet to have a web page along with their paid advertising.

free 5-page sites to businesses that sign up for their Local Featured Listings product, the AdWords Starter Edition only offered a straightforward signup for a single-ad targeted campaign. If the new AdWords Starter client did not have a website, the customer could create one and have the text ad point to it. Now the AdWords crew has Mondelli's and local word of mouth will tell you that it's the place in town to have a wedding cake created. But the bakery, a family-run business, closed for a four-month period this year. Readers of the local paper would have caught wind of its reopening in November, but the customers who are heavy on the web search and very light on the paper reading probably missed it, especially if they were searching for local bakeries. I don't know how much advertising they need, but a simple web page would have been a good place to announce the reopening to coincide with the local news coverage. A little search optimization, a single 'wedding cake lexington' ad targeted locally through AdWords Starter, and maybe they could have avoided the closure that deprived customers of their cannolis. If that's not a worthy reason for advertising online, then nothing else is either. Tag: Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Reddit | Furl Bookmark Murdok: David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.