Google Ads

Google Ads is a Pay Per Click (PPC) text advertising program from Google that can offer affordable search engine advertising for independent brick-and- mortar businesses. Text ads are displayed at the top of search engine results pages and in the right column; you may even notice a light background color that indicates that these are advertisements.

Businesses place these relevant text ads, which are displayed when keywords entered into a Google Search box match up with the keywords that a business has bid on, provided that the bid is high enough, the historical click-through rate is good and the text ad and landing page have a good Quality Score. According to Google, “Quality Score is an estimate of how relevant your ads, keywords, and landing page are to a person seeing your ad.”

Relevant keywords help your ad show as people search. As a small business, you may want to avoid competitive keywords, which can call for bids exceeding $5 each, and focus on keywords that are relevant to your industry but which few businesses are bidding on; the rate will be lower and your Return On Investment (ROI) can be higher. Research keywords with the Google Keyword Tool, starting with broad keywords, then entering more narrow queries and noting any new phrases that appear.

A good text ad gets people to click on the ad. When your click rate is good, your text ad is likely to be displayed in a higher position. Good text ads generally make an offer — a free booklet download, a discount, a special, a guarantee, a free trial, something that people can sink their teeth into.

Businesses pay for text ads when people click on them, taking them to a landing page that you specify the URL of when placing an ad. The goal of the landing page is to make an arriving visitor want to take your desired action. Make sure the heading on your landing page matches the text ad that a visitor clicked to arrive there. Put any call to action above the scroll. Eye-catching images or bullet points may help keep visitors from bouncing. Sometimes the usual website header, sidebar or footer are removed as distractions that keep visitors from taking action.

Your desired action places visitors onto the Funnel Path leading to your Goal — signing up for an enewsletter, making a purchase, sending an email.

To assess the effectiveness of a Google AdWords Campaign and access more than 80 reports that can help a business build a better campaign the next time, rely on Google Analytics.