Google makes a lot of money.  They earned $1.97 Billion last quarter.  That’s a lot of money.  So how does this relate to commercial real estate?  Well many online commercial real estate companies and regular commercial brokerages spend a lot of money online advertising with Google.  We do the same at Rofo.

Advertising with Google can be done two ways, either advertise on the Google search results page or in their content network (any site with adsense and gmail).  Below you can see the highlighted paid advertising section of the Google search engine results page (SERP) for the ‘Los Angeles Office Space’ search query.  The three slots on the top of the page are the most expensive.  The side bar is priced by position on the page, with the top spots being the most costly.

So how much does it cost to buy this type of advertising for “Los Angeles Office Space” searches?  It costs nothing to display the ad, but if your ad gets clicked then Google starts raking in the dough.  The average cost per click (CPC) for the keyword “Los Angeles Office Space” is $10.72.  Basically every time someone clicks on an ad served for “Los Angeles Office Space” it costs the advertiser an average of $10.72.  You can research keyword CPC’s yourself with the Google Keyword Tool.

Below is a snap shot of the data the Google Keyword Tool helps you explore.  It shows the keyword searched, what you will pay per click, the local search volume for the term, the global search volume and the recent search trends.  It looks like searches related to Los Angeles Office Space increased in 2009, hopefully a good sign for the economy, or maybe just for Google.

And this is just a click, it doesn’t guaranty that this customer will stay on your site, they might leave immediately.  This is where the second part of online advertising comes in, having good landing pages!

A landing page is where a searcher ends up after clicking your add.  Landing pages are a subject all their own, so I won’t go into much detail.  Basically you want your landing page to reflect the ad that led to it and have good calls to action.  A good call to action would be bright visible button with some text that helps the customer realize what to do after they landed on the page.  Check out this landing page article to learn more.

It would be great to hear from any brokers or landlords who have tried Google Adwords for themselves and what they thought of the experience.  Let us know in the comments.