Running an online business is no joke anymore, especially when you have to compete with behemoths like Amazon, which has an infinite marketing budget to fuel their advertising. The race to the top of Google Search results is fierce. Even with excellent SEO, reaching the first page could take months or even a year.
This is where paid advertisements (PPC) come in. Google AdWords is Google's advertising service that allows businesses to place advertisements on Google's search results pages. Ads are typically displayed at the top or bottom of Google SERPs (search engine result pages).
Google Ads is a popular and effective marketing strategy for businesses seeking their first online customers. Today, we'll go over some of the fundamentals of using Google Ads for business.
The Benefits of Using Google Adsense
👉PPC Preparation
👉Setting up a Google Adsense Account
👉Evaluating Multiple Ads Campaigns
👉The Quality Score of Google
When it comes to online advertising, Google Ads is a powerful tool. What makes it so fantastic? The following are some of the benefits that businesses receive from Google's paid marketing platform:
1. Exact Targeting
With Google's numerous targeting options, business owners can ensure that their ad is only shown to potential customers. Businesses can target their customers based on their geographical location, age, keywords, and more. They can also select the time of day when their ads will be shown to their targeted audience. A common example that many businesses use is running ads only Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. This is typically due to the fact that businesses are closed or operate at a slower pace on weekends. This can aid in maximizing ad spend. This is especially beneficial to local businesses. According to studies, 50% of mobile users who conducted a local search on their smartphone ended up buying something.
2. Devices with a Specific Purpose
Following a 2013 update, Google Ads now allows businesses to select the type of device on which their ads will be displayed. You can use the search network on desktops, tablets, or mobile devices. Businesses can drill down even further on the display network and target specific devices such as iPhones or Windows. Bid adjustments enable automatic bid increases or decreases on devices that are more likely to convert on your site. Analyze conversion and ecommerce data in Analytics.
3. Only Pay For Results
This is arguably the most well-known benefit of advertising on Google Ads. Businesses that use Ads only pay for clicks on their ads rather than impressions. A pay-per-click (PPC) advertising model is used in this case. Businesses can save money by only paying when a user interacts with their website.
4. Performance Monitoring
Google Ads allows businesses to track the effectiveness of their advertisements. This means you can keep track of how many people see and click on your ad. You can also use Ads to track the number of users who take the desired action after visiting your website.
Preparing for PPC
Pay Per Click advertising is a powerful tool when used correctly. Before you begin the process of creating your AdWords account, you must first determine your goals. While "more sales" may appear to be a great goal, online advertising will require you to be more specific.
It is highly unlikely that a first-time visitor to your website will make a purchase. Online sales are more dependent on developing and maintaining a trusting relationship with your customer. As a result, a company may use AdWords to achieve a variety of goals. Examples include:
👉Obtaining sales
👉Email subscriptions
👉Creating Leads
👉Increasing brand recognition and recall value
While having multiple objectives is perfectly acceptable, keep in mind that you will need to run separate campaigns to achieve each one (More on this later). Aside from determining your goal, having a Landing page is an essential prerequisite for AdWords advertising.
The Landing Page
When a user clicks on your advertisement, they "land" on a landing page, which is a URL or a webpage. A landing page is a separate page from your main website that is designed to focus on a specific goal. A good landing page is essential for the success of your AdWords campaign. A well-designed and optimized landing page will be beneficial.
While designing your landing page, keep the following points in mind:
Individual landing pages for individual offers: Create individual landing pages for individual offers. A landing page with multiple objectives may end up confusing your visitors.
Remember to include and properly highlight the desired call to action button on your landing page.
Mobile friendly: With the growing number of mobile internet users, it is critical that your landing page is mobile friendly.
Deliver on your promises: Your landing page should fulfill any promises made in your advertisement. For example, if your ad mentions a discount, make sure the landing page includes the discount.
More information on creating high-converting landing pages can be found here.
You should now have a list of objectives and dedicated landing pages to help you achieve each one.
Now is the time to create your Google Adsense account.
Step 1: Sign Up for a Google Adsense Account
Simply go to the Google Adsense website and sign up with your Google adsense account. If you do not already have a Google account, you must create one. Don't worry, it shouldn't take more than a few minutes.
After entering the necessary information, you will be directed to the following page where you can create your first campaign. You can set your budget, target audience, bids, and write your ad copy here.
Step 2: Create a Budget
As you can see, the first task on the list is to create a budget. Setting a daily budget will ensure that you never exceed your spending limits. The best way to calculate your daily budget is to first determine how many visitors your landing page can convert into customers. Working with averages is fine if you're just starting out.
The average conversion rate across industries, according to WordStream, is 2.35%. This means that after clicking on an advertisement, only 2.35% of users take the desired action. You can calculate how much you are willing to spend per visitor by using the average conversion rate for your industry. This is also known as cost per acquisition (CPA).
After you've selected your preferred currency and budget, click save to proceed to the next step.
Step 3: Determine Your Target Market
You can specify the geographical location of your target audience in this step. This feature ensures that your ad is shown only to users who conduct a search using the keywords you're bidding on and are present in the geographical location you specify.
You can use "radius targeting" if you use the advanced search option. You can target a specific radius from your zip code using radius targeting. Depending on the nature of your business, you may want to target entire countries or just cities if you sell locally. You can even specify different bid adjustments for different radius targets. For instance, you might want to bid higher within a 10-mile radius but lower within a 30-mile radius.
Step 4: Select a Network
The next step is to select either Google's Search Network or Google's Display Network. The Search Network places your ads on Google SERPs, whereas the Display Network places your ad on any website that displays ads.
It is recommended for beginners and small businesses to use the Search Network because it shows your ads to users who are specifically searching for keywords related to your business. Display ads are great for branding and retargeting, and they have a much lower CPC. However, they are not as query-oriented.
Step 5: Select Your Keywords
When conducting a search, a user's search terms or phrases are entered into Google's search box. Google allows you to select up to 15-20 keywords that may cause your ad to appear on the SERP. Don't be concerned; you can always add more keywords later.
It is preferable to select a few keywords that are certain to produce results rather than 20 that may be somewhat relevant. Having said that, consider the search volumes of the keywords you select. While it may appear tempting to select a keyword with a search volume of 450,000, doing so may not be the best idea.
As previously stated, AdWords operates on a bidding system. Keywords with high search volumes are typically prohibitively expensive to bid on. Choosing more keywords or keywords with a high search volume may prove to be an expensive endeavor.
Choose a few relevant keywords with low search volumes to keep your costs low.
Keyword Types and Choosing the Best "Keyword Match"
There are four keyword match types that determine how your ad will appear.
Broad match: Broad match is Ads default setting. It "allows your ad to show for searches on similar phrases and relevant variations, including synonyms, singular and plural forms, possible misspellings, and stemmings," according to Google.
Broad match allows you to reach the greatest number of people. However, because broad match displays your ads for synonyms and one part of your keywords, your ad may appear in a large number of irrelevant search results.
For example, if you use broad match and target "fine dining restaurants Manchester," your ad may appear in the results for "pizza in Manchester."
Broad match modifier: This modifier provides you with more control. You can secure a term by simply adding a '+' before it. Your ad will appear in the results only when a search term contains the phrases or words after the '+'.
For example, if you bid on "+fine dining Manchester," your results will never appear for search terms such as "pizza in Manchester."
Phrase match: The phrase match gives business owners even more control. When you select phrase match, your ad will only appear in search results for search terms that are in the same order as your selected keyword.
This means that if you select "Manchester fine dining," your ad will not appear for "Manchester fine dining." Simply put your keywords between quotation marks to specify phrase match.
Exact match: As the name implies, this option ensures that your ad appears only when someone searches with a search term that is identical to your chosen keywords.
If you select exact match and your keyword is "fine dining Manchester," your ad will not appear for search terms such as "best fine dining restaurants in Manchester."
Put brackets around your keywords to specify an exact match. (For instance, [fine dining Manchester]) When first starting out, using exact match can be a safe and slower way to scale out your campaigns.
Negative keywords are terms that help you ensure that your ad is not shown to irrelevant audiences. This Ads feature is useful if you have a product or service that shares keywords with something unrelated.
Step 6: Place Your Bid
As previously stated, AdWords employs a bidding model. A bid is the sum of money you are willing to pay for each person who clicks on your advertisement. If you and your competitor are bidding for the same keyword and willing to pay more per click, your ad will appear above theirs.
As you can see, you are given two options. The first allows Google to set your bid amount in order to maximize the returns on your budget. If you prefer to set your bid manually, we recommend conducting some research using Google's Keyword Planner.
If you're just getting started, you might want to start with automatic bids until you've gotten a feel for the AdWords system. However, manually setting bids is usually more cost-effective. However, this sometimes necessitates additional ongoing maintenance.
Step 7: Compose Your Ad
Writing your ad is arguably the most important step in this process. We recommend that you give it some serious thought and make it really compelling. Your message should clearly communicate your offer and persuade a user to click on your ad and visit your website. Here are some pointers to get you started:
Step 8: Create your advertisement
When you're finished writing your ad, click the "save" button to proceed to the next step. Google will ask you about your business and payment information in this section. You will be charged when your budget is depleted or after 30 days, whichever comes first.
