There’s probably hardly anyone of us who hasn’t used Google at some stage or other; in fact, most of us probably ‘google’ something at least once or more every day. That’s why Google is the world’s largest search engine and such a powerhouse of our modern online world. But what about using Google advertising to expand your business? This is where Google AdWords could be a great tool to include in your online advertising strategy.
Have you seen the adverts that appear on the top or side of your screen when you’re on Google? Well, that’s Google AdWords – Google’s own paid advertising service.
Google AdWords – some basic principles
In a nutshell, with Google AdWords, you pay Google to highlight your advert when people are searching on Google using keywords that are relevant to your advert. Basically, you pick keywords that you think a searcher might use on Google, then create an advert that will appear on the search engine results page based on those keywords. Then, every time a searcher clicks on your advert, you pay a certain amount to Google – this is known as pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.
There are 4 main components to a Google AdWords advert, namely:
- The headline (with a maximum of 25 characters) is the most important part of the advert because it’s the first thing a searcher will read. Include your keyword(s) in the headline to ensure your advert is completely relevant to the searcher. A great strategy is to ask a question in the headline, for example, if your keywords are “Auckland rental property” then a compelling headline would be “Need an Auckland rental property?”. With only a maximum of 25 characters allowed for the headline, you need to make every letter count.
- The description lines 1 and 2 (with a maximum of 35 characters each) is where you need to highlight the benefits of your product or service – in other words, this is where your unique selling proposition comes into play and where you place your call to action for the searcher.
- The display URL (with a maximum of 35 characters) does not simply copy your domain name; rather, make sure your display URL includes your offer or unique selling proposition as another way to help make your advert stand out, e.g. www.domain.co.nz/Auckland_Rentals
With millions of people on Google all the time, using Google AdWords probably sounds like a great opportunity to expand your business. However, given the fact you have to pay Google every time a searcher clicks on your advert, irrespective of whether it results in a sale or not, if you don’t do it right, it could end up costing you a bundle.
Is a Google AdWords campaign right for your business?
So, before you even think about investing in an online advertising campaign using Google AdWords, do some research about your audience and how best to reach them. Just because Google is the world’s largest search engine doesn’t automatically mean that it’s the most effective way to reach your specific audience.
After all, if your specific customers are not searching for your product or service via Google, then using AdWords to advertise to them is not going to work. You can use the Google AdWords Keyword Suggestion Tool to tell you how often people search the phrases you might want to use in your Google AdWords campaign, how competitive these keywords are, and how much each keyword will cost you.
When trying to determine whether you want to include Google AdWords in your digital strategy, ask yourself if your keyword(s) is searched in Google, if the people searching on your keyword(s) are likely to buy your product or service (or are they just inquisitive browsers), and whether you can afford to advertise using your keyword(s).
Do you have a compelling proposition for your Google AdWords campaign?
Your Google ads have two crucial jobs to do, namely, to attract searchers to click on your advert instead of those of your competitors and to repel any searchers who are not interested in your product or service – after all, you don’t want people clicking simply out of curiosity and wasting your ad budget.
OK, so you’re sure you can reach your target market via Google AdWords, but how can you ensure the offer in your Google AdWords campaign is so compelling that a searcher simply has to take action? You can make searches an irresistible offer by giving them something that:
- Is valuable – define the value that your product or service offers in such a way that the prospective customer sees that what they will be getting clearly outweighs the price tag.
- Is believable – people are wary of being ripped off online, so you will need to provide a credible reason for your special offer, e.g. you’re having an end-of-season sale, you’re celebrating an anniversary or you’re starting a new service.
- Reduces their risk – as mentioned, people are wary of being ripped off, so you need to offer them a guarantee of some sort that removes the risk from them and puts it on you, by offering them something like a money back guarantee for example.
- Has a clearly defined call to action – make it very easy for searchers to do what you want them to do.
Having compelling Google ads will ultimately drive more traffic to your website and result in more sales, which all lead to higher profits for you. Compelling ads also mean higher click-through rates, which will boost your Google AdWords quality score.
How to boost your Google AdWords quality score?
With online advertising growing in leaps and bounds, and users being bombarded with ever-increasing amounts of information, search engines, including Google, are becoming more and more focused on the quality of the content they make available to users.
So, in the case of Google AdWords, Google not only considers how much you pay per click for your advert, but it also looks at how relevant and useful your advert is to the searcher, the search terms they’ve used, how many clicks your advert receives (the click-through rate), and how relevant the landing page is to the searcher who has clicked on your advert.
The latter is very, very important. Not directing searchers to an appropriate product or service page is possibly one of the biggest mistakes people make with Google AdWords. Make sure that when someone clicks on your advert that they land on a page on your website that directly matches the advert they clicked on, rather than taking them to your homepage and expecting them to navigate to your special offer from there.
So, create a dedicated landing page on your website that matches the same headline as in your advert, reiterates both the offer you’ve made and the benefits of your product or service, reinforces the credibility of your offer and includes a strong and easily executable call to action.
Google AdWords and more
When setting up and managed properly, a Google AdWords campaign can be one of the best sources for new prospects and a very effective way for driving traffic to your website.
However, Google AdWords is not the only tool for ensuring a successful online presence for your business. This is one of the reasons why the team at Net Branding takes a holistic approach to helping you develop a digital strategy that’s tailored to the specific needs of your business.
Not only can we help you devise a pay-per-click online advertising campaign that’s perfect for your specific requirements and budget, but our professional search engine optimisation (SEO) services will drastically improve your website’s organic search score, enabling it to compete for the highest rankings, even when it comes to highly competitive keywords.
In addition to SEO, our digital marketing services include social media marketing, email campaigns, analysis of your website and the development of a suitable conversion rate strategy – all of which are aimed at increasing your online visibility and driving online leads through your sales funnel. Contact us today to find out more about how we can help your business reach its full potential online.
