Google Search Ads Guide

When you own a small business (or a large business), there are lots of techniques that you can use to attract attention to your brand and boost your sales. Pay per click(PPC) advertising, Content marketing, search engine optimization, influencer marketing are some of the things that you can use to help boost sales and conversions. And when it comes to PPC advertising, one of the ways to get the most out of your investment is using the Google Search Ads.

What are Google Search Ads?

It is one of the ad formats Google offers for advertisers. If you have ever used Google to search for a query, you’ve probably seen a Google Search Ad. Google Ads are paid advertisements that appear on relevant Google searches. These ads typically appear at the top of a search page and are disguised to look like any other link. The only difference is that the owner of the link(and snippet) has paid for them to be displayed at the top(and sometimes bottom) of the search results.

At this point, the keyword match types control which searches on Google will show an ad.  Keyword match types are broad match, exact match, broad match modifier, and phrase match. Also, there are negative keywords that allow you to prevent the ad placement on the specific searches. Just as an example, the broad match allows you to show an ad to a wide audience.

The Google Ads works with auctions on keywords. An advertiser target keywords that are relevant to their business line, products or services. Keywords should be the ones potential customers are likely to use when they are looking for the product or service. In order to simplify, we can say that advertisers bid on these keywords, basing each bid on how much they are willing to pay for a Google user to click on their ad, although it is a little complex than this.

The bid amount and the Quality Score of the ads determine which ads will appear and how much the advertiser will pay for each click in reality. An ad with a higher Quality Score and lower bid can beat another with lower quality and higher bid.

A little more detail: when a user clicks an ad on Google, the advertiser pays specific amount(Cost per click or CPC), which is calculated with the following formula: (Competitor Ad Rank/Your Quality Score) + 0.01 = Actual CPC

This is also why this type of advertisement is called pay per click.

Quality Score is determined by several factors such as:

• Relevance of the Google ad to the search query
• Relevance of the keywords to their ad groups
• Landin page quality and the relevance of the ad to its landing page
• Click-through rate (CTR)
• Overall historical Google Ads account performance

All in all, it is vital to optimize the ads for higher Quality Score which will lead to better results and much lower costs.

Are Google Search Ads Worth the Money?

Google Search Ads has a huge advantage. Perfect timing! They reach potential customers at the exact time they are looking for your products or services. Also, let’s answer this question with a bit more data. Look at the statistics:

• Google averages over 3.5 billion searches every day – that’s over 40 000 searches every second!
• 73% of the paid market belongs to Google.
• Online advertisements increase brand awareness by over 80%.
• 35% of people will purchase something they searched for within 5 days of searching for it.

Enough said – these statistics speak for themselves. And with statistics like these, we would say yes, as a PPC advertising type Google Search Ads are definitely worth the money.

How Can You use Google Search Ads for more sales?

The key to doing well on Google Search ads is to optimize your ads in such a way that you attract the right audience. Here’s how to do that:

• Most important trick is to have a high Quality Score which depends on the factors we mentioned above.
• Choose your keywords carefully. Keywords should be extremely relevant to your service or product. This will ensure that you only attract people looking for similar services or products to yours.
• Use long-tail keywords as well. Simply the long-tail keywords are those that are longer. For example, “popular dog food brands” is considered a long-tail keyword, while “dog food” is simply a keyword. Long-tail keywords tend to be less competitive and have higher chances of conversion.
• Wisely choose the keyword match types.
• Utilize negative keywords. These are words that prevent your ad from being triggered by a specific word or phrase. Negative keywords are the opposite of regular keywords, but also help to manage your target audience.
• Consider bidding on your own brand name. Why? Because if you aren’t, your competitors are.
• Keep your ads up to date and in line with current trends.
• Try to make it personal if it is relevant to your product or service. One of the biggest mistakes that brands make in their ads is making them generic. The single most flattering word that you can call a person is their name. Of course, you can’t refer to everyone in your ad by name, so the next best word is “you”. Tell people what you can do for them and you will reap the benefits.
• Keep your ads local. A vast number of Google searches are for local businesses, and by keeping your ads local you will be telling consumers that help is right around the corner.

Google processes billions of searches every day and Google Ads can be a great way to generate interest in your brand, boost sales and increase conversions. With that being said, only good ads work – so you need to make sure you do it right. Try some of the tips above to help you optimize your Google Ads, and then utilize other methods like content marketing or influencer marketing to help strengthen your marketing plan.