A Comprehensive Guide to Google Adwords – Let's Learn the Basics of Paid Ads

When it comes to competing online for gaining new customers then it can be a tricky affair. However, there are a lot of digital marketers out there who know the important insights of online marketing and for them it has become a lot easier to gain that market share which you may be struggling to capture. Well, here you must be thinking that what you need to do to compete with them?

Let me answer this for you. You can get in on the action if you learn to use the same tricks as those marketing professionals are doing. And, one of those best digital marketing tricks is learning how to use Google Ads effectively so that you can engage customers and get them thinking about your company.

Here is a guide to Google Ads where you can learn about how to take advantage of Google AdWords as well as getting it working in your favor. So, let’s get started…

Google Paid Ad Campaigns

However, the PPC world is highly competitive but no worries let me introduce you with the Google paid ad campaigns in the easiest way. Your Google paid ad campaigns allow you to zero-in on your ideal customers as it has combined geo-targeting, keywords, basic demographics, and audience behavior features for enabling you to sell your brand, services, and products.

Well, the beauty of the whole idea of paid ad campaign is that here you will only pay when you get the result you want i.e. when you ad is clicked. That means, in simpler words Google Ads let you "cheat" your way to the search rankings, but always remember only if you are ethical. So, the only difference between your ranking by ads and the ones just below you ranking with SEO is that your results are not "organic." Let’s find out which one is easy to reach “Organic ranking or Paid Ads ranking”.

Organic Versus Paid

When you think of reaching the top of an organic ranking then you have to be diligent in building your content. Also, it takes a lot of work and requires quite a bit of time invested in coming up with unique ideas for blogs and fresh content. Moreover, organic growth is highly competitive which also takes a lot of knowledge on how Google search engines work and the knowledge of the dreaded challenges of SEO.

However, on the flip side there is a far easier approach which is paying for Google ads. Google Ads allows you to appear just above the highest organic ranking. But it’s also not as simple as it sounds because you’ll still have to gain some knowledge on the best strategy to become an effective bidder for taking full advantage of your marketing spend whilst reaching the most people.

The AdWords Bidding

Just as the name indicates, Google AdWords has set up a bidding process which forces advertisers to bid for the position they want. Here, the advertisers can set the amount which they’re willing to pay and the price for each click they receive. And, if an advertiser turns out to be the highest bidder for that target position, then his ad will be shown when someone does a search using a particular keyword.

However, there's an additional factor to rank with Google Ads and that is your quality score. Yes, you heard it right even if you dint bid highest but if your quality score is good then you ads has higher chances to show on top because Google is all about providing quality results to its users. However, there are a lot of things that can happen in the bidding process but, simply you need to have a higher bid and the best quality ad to get to the position you want.

The Quality Metrics

As I told you Google isn’t just interested in finding the highest bidder that means you also have to consider the quality of the information that you’re going to provide to the consumer when they choose to click on your Ads. That means you need to put in thought into your landing page because Google wants to see information which is relevant to your keywords as Google always want to keep the customers happy.

Moreover, you can take advantage of every click by providing your customers with a special offer or a free sign up for newsletter, or a specially coded offer which they can use. And you need to understand here that a conversion doesn't have to be a sale but it just has to get them to follow your call-to-action and do what you want them to do. So, as you have understood the main factors in Google Ads let’s have a look at getting the best ROI.

How to Get the Best ROI (Return on Investment)?

As we all understand that your Google Ads Strategy should have some form of payback otherwise it might not be worth your investment. You should remember that the ads will start to cost you at the very next moment and the more successful your ad will be the more money it will cost. So, it becomes necessary that you get the best possible return on investment (ROI) for your ad spend.

However, the good news is that you can set a daily budget which allows you to control your spending. So, to create Google Ads that get the best ROI, you will need to plan the following things:

✔ Budget

✔ Keywords

✔ Research on your competitors

✔ An effective landing page

✔ Your campaign

✔ Your ad

Let's read about them one-by-one in the following write up part.

Planning Your Budget

As I told you in the above part, you can determine that how much you are willing to bid for each click on your ad as well as how much you are willing to spend each day. This budget allowance helps you control your budget as well as avoid overspending. However, if you find that you’re not getting the results you want then you can reconsider your top bid, or you can relook at your keywords and look for other keyword options that are less competitive.

Keywords

The free Google keyword planner is one of the best features of Google Adwords as it is an easy to use tool especially if you know your customers well. Here you can start by using the products and services you offer and fine tune your keyword research by using product categories. Later on as your results come in, you can look for other ways to reduce competition while keeping an eye on how frequently those keywords are searched every month. The trick works well to find the lowest average bid with the highest monthly searches.

Competition

Next comes the analysis of your competitor’s keywords. You can also find out what keywords the competition is using to get them to the top of the rankings with some websites such as SEMrush. They will provide you with the information of the keywords that you want to use and how many other companies are using them. With the help of these websites you can find the following:

✔ How many competitors are using those keywords

✔ Other keyword ideas that perform well in your niche

✔ A history of the advertisers along with the samples of their ads

Landing Page

Once you get a click on your ad then obviously you don’t want to disappoint the user. That's why it is important that your landing page is worth it. There could be two reasons because of which you want to convert people who reach your landing page. The first is that it helps increase sales and second is that Google likes conversions too. So, if you are converting more people who are clicking your ads then Google remembers this and it helps you increase your ranking position.

Below are some tips that you can use to improve your landing pages:

✔ Simple designs are the best as they are easier to read, and load faster.

✔ Create a compelling headline to get an appropriate reaction.

✔ State the facts to be transparent & trustworthy.

✔ Use more bullet points and less long paragraphs for an easier read.

✔ Choose an eye-catching image which adds to your message.

Your AdWords Campaign

Next the most important thing which comes in is Campaigns as AdWords works by setting up campaigns. And, each campaign allows you to target your audience based on location, the keywords you have chosen, kind of products you offer and based on what are your targets. However, you should take advantage of the following features for boosting your PPC campaign:

✔ Demographic targeting: The more finite your target will be the better your chances of conversions will be there. Google Adwords allows you to target income, the parental status, gender, as well as age of your audience.

✔ Click-to-call: Click-to-call feature of Google Ads allows you to add call extensions so that people can engage with someone at your company right away by just touching on their screen of their mobiles.

✔ Optimized ad rotation: Finally best feature is of Google Ad campaigns is Ad rotation. It allows you to test various ads so that you can find the best one for your audience. With this feature Google will do this for you automatically and will help you create a range of ads. With this you can determine which ones work best and improve your future performance.

✔ Your Ads: Finally, it comes to create effective ads and for creating your ad the same premise will be used as in case of your landing pages. Simple is best. The paid ads are even shorter because there is less space to communicate your message. So, the things to focus on would include your unique value proposition so that customers get learn about the benefits in a quick dose. Moreover, using your keywords in your ad works also. After all, keywords are what got people here in the first place and you just want conversions. So, a simple call to action “click here” can be the final step in getting them to your landing page.

As the PPC models are taking over the online marketing game today so this guide will help you get tech-savvy quick.