When you’re finally ready to dip your toe into paid advertising, Google Ads is the obvious choice for a lot of small business owners. While Google endeavors to make the set-up process as easy as possible, it’s good to be familiar with a few fundamentals and have all the information you need gathered so set up and ongoing management is easier. Here are a few Google Ads basics you need to know as a PPC newbie to have a successful paid ads campaign.
If you know what you’re doing, Google Ads are worth it for small businesses. Advertising on Google is great for small businesses that need to reach targeted audiences and want to be able to track their ROI to make sure their efforts are paying off. Budgets can be as big or small as you want; you don’t need a big budget to get started. If you learn how to use Google Ads, especially local ad listings, Google Ads can be one of the most profitable ways to get new business.
There are more terms you can be familiar with, but these are key.
Depending on your business, you may run one small campaign, or you may want to have a variety of campaigns. For example, if you offer three different services, you may want three different campaigns. If you offer 7 products, you may want 7 different campaigns. Under each campaign, you may want to run more than one ad. For example, let’s say you sell vacuums and dishwashers. You’d likely create two different campaigns. Under each campaign, you may want two to three ads. Perhaps under the vacuum campaign, there may be one ad for a high-level vacuum, a mid-range vacuum, and an economy vacuum. You don’t HAVE TO have more than one ad under each campaign but doing so will help you better target your audience by specific keyword phrases and send traffic to the most relevant URL on your website.
Know it’s time to pick which keywords you’re using for each campaign and each ad. Keywords are crucial to the success of your campaign so put a lot of thought into this. Here are a few good suggestions from Marketing Donut for picking good keyword phrases:
Broad match: the default match type and the one that reaches the widest audience. When using broad match, your ad is eligible to appear whenever a user’s search query includes any word in your key phrase, in any order.
Phrase match: offers versatility, but with a higher level of control. Your ad will only appear when a user queries your key phrase using your keywords in the exact order you enter them, but there might be other words either before or after that phrase.
Exact match: the most specific of the keyword match types. Google has recently made changes to the exact match type so that even when using exact match keywords, your ads might match to searches containing synonyms, plurals, or other variations on your keyword.
For the most part, the broad search option will eat your budget quickly, so phrase or exact is the way to have the most control.
For each campaign, you’ll want to choose what page on your site to send them to. Sending everyone to your home page is not the best approach. Send searchers directly to the page most relevant for the ad, and the keywords within that campaign and ads.
It’s also a good idea to include a “call to action” in your ad: a clear, concise message that tells the reader what you’d like them to do after seeing your ad. Phrases like “shop now” or “learn more” are good examples.
Google Ads are not set it and forget it. Watch how well ads are doing, which keywords are bringing in the right kinds of traffic (and the wrong traffic). Add irrelevant keywords to your negative keyword list. Change up ad text if needed. Watch which campaigns merit a larger budget vs. a smaller budget.
Having a solid understanding of Google Ads before you start is the best path to success. If you’re unsure how to begin or don’t have the time to commit, considering hiring a small business marketing professional to help with your small business paid search advertising. Want to become even more versed in Google Ads? You can go through Google Ads certification. For now, get started with the Google Ads basics and bring in more leads!
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