Is this going to be the year you dive into advertising on Google? If so, you’re joining a successful group of entrepreneurs, businesses, and organizations that use paid ads every day to market themselves online. Google churns out more than 3.5 billion searches every day, and its algorithm is incredibly intuitive. That makes it a powerhouse when it comes to advertising your business.
How to Use Google Ads
Follow these steps to get your Google Ads account set up and your first campaign underway.
1. Prepare Your Funnel
Your first step is preparing your website to take full advantage of your paid Google Ads. Your funnel – the process that takes your audience from point A to point B – is what will bring you new leads or customers. They’ll start on Google or another website, depending on the ads you use, click your ad, and end up on your landing page.
That landing page might be your website’s main page, a product page, an email signup link, or a landing page created specifically for your ad. Your goals for your Google Ads determine your landing page’s design, functionality, and its messaging and call-to-action (CTA). Have your landing page ready and optimized before starting an ad campaign.
2. Set Up an AdWords Account
Screenshot via Google Ads
Next, you’ll sign up for AdWords and start setting up the basics. Head to the Google Ads website and click the Start Now button. The wizard walks you through each step to gather your basic details and start your campaign. You can also choose to skip the walk-through if you’d rather do it all manually.
3. Create a Budget and Audience
Now, Google will ask you about your budget and audience. These are two crucial metrics to consider when creating your ads. Your budget is how much you can afford to spend on your ad campaign each day. You can start as conservatively as you want until you get a feel for how your ads perform. Google only charges you when someone clicks on your ad, not when someone sees it.
Google AdWords offers several metrics for audience targeting, including location, gender, and age. You can also market to people searching for products or services similar to yours or people you’ve placed on your remarketing lists.
4. Decide What Type of Ads Suit Your Goals
Google has you choose between running ads on its Search Network, Display Network, or both. The Search Network hosts paid ads in Google’s search engine when someone searches for a specific word or phrase. The Display Network includes paid advertisements that display on other websites.
Which one is right for you? It depends on your goals and budget, mostly. Search Network is best for campaigns that advertise something that someone might use Google to search for, like a car mechanic or a vacation package. A smaller budget might also do well with Search Network since it typically results in a better conversion rate.
Display Network is better for larger budgets, remarketing campaigns, and brand awareness. An eye-catching display ad can help people learn more about your business, products, or services and encourage them to click to visit your website.
5. Find the Right Keywords
Just as you can target your ideal audience through Google Ads, you can also target your ideal keywords to help you reach people who might be searching for what you’re selling. You can choose up to 20 keywords that are relevant to your ad to help it show to potential buyers.
Google also lets you point some or all of your keywords to people who meet certain demographic criteria, like a location or an age range. Say you’re advertising a home health care service. You might use the keyword “health care for seniors” and target people in the 30-55 age range who would generally search for care for their aging parents.
6. Fill Out Your Ads
Screenshot via Google Ads
When you complete the targeting process, you’ll move onto writing your ad. The Google Ads wizard shows you a preview of your ad in real-time, so you can see what it will look like in the search results. It’s an excellent way to catch any odd text placements and make sure your headline and description meet the length requirements.
7. Test, Test, and Test Some More
Don’t feel like you’re stuck with just one ad. You can always go back and edit your campaign if you don’t feel like it’s doing its job at converting. Consider running more than one ad, too, with different messaging. You can compare the two and decide which one might be best for you to move forward with for future campaigns.
Your Google Ads interface covers a lot of the metrics you want to know. Use Google Analytics to monitor your website traffic and important metrics like how much time visitors are spending on your landing pages and whether they visit multiple pages in a single visit.
Want to monitor the essential Google Analytics data right from your WordPress dashboard? The Google Analytics Dashboard for WordPress plugin gives you access to the most important analytics details, like your top five traffic sources, your 10 most-viewed pages, bounce rate, and even age and gender demographics – all at your fingertips while you’re working in your WordPress dashboard.
