Everyone needs a little help when trying to advertise their business or sell a particular product or even drive audiences to their blogging websites. But the problem is how to do so. The internet is a very powerful tool and can be used in several ways. It can be particularly helpful when trying to advertise your business but how do you know just the right place to put an advert for your business? This is where Google Ads come in.
How to Get Started on Google Ads
Google is unarguably one of the most used search engines in today’s world and there is no bigger place to advertise your business. Using keywords and specific phrases tied to an advertisement, Google effectively drives traffic to these businesses that place the advert through Google ads. For instance, you go online and search for dancing shoes and when you get your search results back, you make some observations. You notice that the top of your search results is populated with some ads for websites that sell dancing shoes or rent them out or one thing or the other connected with your search phrase. That, in a nutshell, is how Google ads work.
Setting up your Google ads is relatively easy and fast because of all the help that Google offers you. All you need to do is go to the Google Ads site and follow the step by step process of setting up. You can add relevant images to your ad and, remember, you have to use the relevant images so you can get a high-quality score (we will talk about this later). There are other things to add to your Google Ad so it is optimized and you are assured that you will be firing on all pistons. You can do things like adding Google analytics. This will help you in tracking your metrics and measuring the goals you have set for yourself. Other things you can add are Urchin tracking modules so you can record activity with a specific link. You can also integrate conversion tracking so you will know the number of customers that you get from your ad campaign. These things all come together to promote your business effectively.
How Does it Work?
Google Ads runs on a system of keywords. This simply refers to the integration of specific keywords to advertisements. When these keywords are used, it brings up the search results with links to these businesses. Google Ads displays your ad when these keywords are used to draw traffic to the website. Ads are not limited to just websites as it could linked to a YouTube channel or whatever you want it to be linked to. This depends on the kind of ad campaign you are running. A while ago, with Google Ads, you could just go straight ahead to bid on keywords you wanted and win it but Google developed more stringent rules concerning the kind of quality they put out there. This is called the quality score.
However, Google Ads is not like a magic wand that you can wave and all your traffic-related troubles go away. There are several factors that need to be taken into consideration for you to have a successful Google Ads run. To truly understand how it could work, we have to break it down further.
What you need to know is Google ads are divided into two networks under which various options are available for you to use. They are:
Search network
Display network
The search network contains the locations of the ads that are up for display. They resemble the search results of searches except for the subtle tags in the top left corner that marks them as ads. You may see the search network in another form as direct products are shown on google. If you wanted to buy a television and you search for the best televisions to buy, those squares that pop up below your search with the price from different sites are the direct search network. It is even available in not just the Google search page but also on Google maps.
The display network, on the other hand, is rarely text-based. This is used in such ads as YouTube, Gmail or the plethora of sites that Google has available. You could be watching kitten videos on YouTube and stumble upon a video ad for a certain product. That is the display network.
Adranks
To get the mass of consumers to flock to your page, you will have to be at the top of your Google Ads game. That means you have to be at the top of the search page to draw huge crowds of potential customers to your site. This is not decided by you. However, various factors are taken into consideration when this is decided by Google. Adranks is a value system created by Google to determine how the top spots are occupied. Ranking low here means not getting as much spotlight as the top ads. The factors considered are-
1.) Bids: as mentioned previously, you have to bid for keywords. The higher you bid, the higher your rank will be. Before you start throwing money at your Google Ads, you should know that just bidding is not enough to secure you that top spot.
2.) Context fit: Google will not just plug in your ad to anywhere. Your ad must fit into the context it is brought into. Google will also consider if your ad is the best fit for the person searching.
3.) Quality score: The most important aspect of Adranks is the quality score. Quality score is gotten from the relevance of your ad and also how appealing it is to people. This is decided by the number of people that click on your ad when it comes up. While bidding is very important, the twist with Google Ads is that you do not need to be paying huge amounts of money if you get your quality score right. It is no secret how Google places much emphasis on the quality of the content they put out there. If you get your quality score perfectly, it does not matter how much your competitor is paying, there is a good chance that you will be ahead. This goes a long way to reveal how important quality score is in the placement of ads and how you can make the best of it. Through time, Google has placed more importance on the quality score. It is currently comprised of three distinctive parts and they are
Expected click-through rate (CTR): the click-through rate is the rate at which people click on your ad and visit your site. If you have a low click rate, it will negatively reflect on your site and will reduce your quality score. However, if your click-through rate is higher than average then you can expect to have a higher quality score too.
Relevance of ads: Your ad has to make sense for what it is you are trying to sell and be relevant when it pops up. The words of your ad have to be chosen wisely or it will mean that it is irrelevant to the search.
The landing page: The landing page of your site should communicate the same products you put in your ad or it could negatively affect your quality score.
A good quality score is key to making the most of your Google ads so it cannot be ignored or treated as secondary. Before you worry about bidding you should make sure you have a great quality score or you would end up spending a lot of money.
The importance of Google ads
Starting any form of business always feels like you are going to have to take things slow and watch hopefully as things take off. With Google Ads, you can take off immediately and within an hour, start seeing profits. Google Ads is a way to reach a huge audience of potential customers that you would not be able to draw using conventional methods of marketing. Here are some reasons why Google Ads is so important
1.) Fast Results
The use of keywords makes sure that anytime your selected keyword is entered into the search box, your ad will come up and traffic flows to your site. Google is one of the most used search engines globally so you can only imagine the amount of traffic that you can drive to your site if you use the right keywords. Within an hour you may see astonishing results that the utilization of the internet can offer.
2.) Outdo your competitors
The field offered by Google Ads is level, it is now up to you to make the most of it and get above them. This is done by making sure you have a great quality score and improving your adrank in any way that you can. All it will take from you is to bid on keywords that will help you and make sure your site is proper.
3.) Come to a halt at anytime
If you ever decide that Google ads are not for you, then you can come to a stop anytime you want. Let us say you decide you need to reconsider your keywords or see if you are making profit. Then, all you need to do is pause your Google ads or you can even stop them. This can be done in a matter of minutes at no cost at all.
4.) Unlimited reach
The reach that using Google Ads affords you is near infinite. On a global scale, just imagine the staggering number of people that will see your Google ad. To put it into perspective, every second of the day, millions of people are using Google to search for one thing or the other. Using Google Ads will put you on such a huge scale that you will be astonished by the number of traffic that will flood to your site. There is a high probability that with the massive number of people visiting your site, there will be a sizable consumer base that will buy whatever you are selling.
Wrapping Up
There is little question whether Google Ads should be a part of your business strategy because of how easy it is to get started and the advantages of it. Google Ad campaigns have a high rate of success so if you think that your ad campaign is not working for one reason or the other, then you just need to rework your Ad. A side benefit of using Google Ads is that you can use the data you get from using Google analytics to figure out your target market, where you should focus your business attention, and what products are more profitable. This data can also be applied to real-life situations, that is if you want to use it offline.
Your next step is to watch your data. Tweak it a little here and there. Adjust to what you need so you can optimize your Google Ad. If need be that you should turn off the ads because they are not delivering as expected, then you can stop and re-evaluate. Google ads are a tool you can use to grow your business exponentially. A lot has been said of Google Ads and how it can impact your business strategy, there is no doubt that it remains one of the quickest ways to get your business exposed.