Did you know that there are approx 5.6 billion Google Searches per day? Mind-boggling isn’t it? That's nearly 2 trillion global searches per year.
With all those searches happening every day, if you’re a business owner with a website, you should be embracing everything you can to get in front of those active searchers.
There is SEO - in which you gain traffic to your website organically/unpaid which we have covered in a previous article. However, this can be a long process and one that definitely doesn’t produce results overnight.
Then there’s Google Ads - where you pay to have your advertisements displayed at the top of a search results page, based on targeting specific keywords relevant to your business.
If you want to see an ROI from your online efforts then Google Ads is the way to go.
In this article, we’ll cover the basics of Google Ads to help you understand what they are, the benefits of using them, and a brief overview of the different types of ads available.
What is Google Ads?
As you have probably guessed, this online advertising platform is run by Google.
How it works is; when a user searches for a specific keyword or phrase, results will appear - both paid and unpaid. The majority of the time, all paid ads will appear at the top of the Search Engine Result Page (SERP). With most users clicking on the first few results of the SERP, this is a great reason to advertise in this space.
The paid ads look very similar to an organic result, apart from the bolded ‘Ad’ that appears on the top left corner of the result.
How do Google Ads work?
Google Ads works like an online advertising auction - in a super fast and efficient way!
Advertisers target specific keywords when setting up their ads, and make bids to have it shown before others competing for the same keyword. The maximum bid you set is the max you’re willing to pay for that ad to appear.
One thing that is important to note is that it’s not just your maximum bid amount that will determine whether your ad appears at the top of a SERP. Google will also look at your quality score (between 1 and 10, with 10 being the best) and, combined with your maximum bid, it will determine your Ad Rank.
Things that determine your Quality Score are:
User Experience; the quality and relevance of your landing page/Website
Relevance to keyword/SEO
Expected CTR (click-through rate)
As you can see, to win in a Google Ads auction, you need to ensure both your Quality Score and your bid amount are optimized. The higher your quality Score and bid amount, the better your ad positioning will be.
Types of Google Ads
There are a few different options when it comes to Google Ads that we’ve briefly outlined below.
Search Campaign
A search campaign is probably the ad result most people automatically think of. They’re the ads that appear as text in a SERP, alongside all organic search results.
Display Campaign
Google partners with over 2 million websites in order to get your ads seen by as many people as possible. When using display campaigns, your ads could appear on third-party websites in a banner-type style or as one of the pre-rolling videos before a YouTube video.
Shopping campaign
This is a great way to advertise for product-based businesses as it's much more visual and your ads will appear both in the SERP as well as the Google Shopping pages.
Video campaign
This option is great for video campaigns as your ads will appear on YouTube in many different ways - as skippable or unskippable ads at the beginning of a YouTube video or it could appear in the search results of a YouTube search.
App campaign
These ads are displayed in the same way as display campaigns but are designed specifically to get your app in front of as many paying users as possible. they will appear in google search results, Google Play, YouTube, Discover on Google Search, and the Google Display Network.
To sum it up:
There are a huge number of benefits to your business when using Google Ads - a higher ROI, fast results, you can manage and change the ads on the go, the ability to be specific with your targeting, and an option to suit any budget. Maybe we’ll save this for a whole other article!
Keep your eye out here as we’ll be putting together more detailed articles together on Google Ads as we understand it can be a confusing and daunting process for many business owners. If you know you need some Google Ads for your business but want to leave it in the hands of someone who knows their stuff, let’s have a chat and talk through the steps to make it happen
