If you choose display network, your ad may show up on other sites like Gmail or YouTube. I suggest you start with search network, because this ensures that your ad will only come up when people search for your type of business or product.
Step 5: Choose Your Keywords
This step is crucial. The keywords you select for ad targeting are the ones that will determine who your ad winds up being targeted to. When that keyword is searched, your ad will come up.
So for example, say you ran a marketing blog and wanted to advertise your SEO course (just a thought).
You may consider targeting keywords like “SEO tools” “What is seo” and “seo marketing” (which have a search volumes of 8100, 14800, and 5400, respectively). Combining this with your geographic requirements will ensure you are hitting target prospects in your area.
To figure out which keywords are best for your business, I recommend using Google’s Keyword Planner.
Determining the Match Type of Your Keywords
Google Ads uses keyword match to decide when to display your ad, based on the keyword of your choice.
Match types allow for different variations of your keyword, broadening your ad’s capabilities. For example, your ad targeting the keyword “pizza in Boston” may be matched with other variations like “pizza in the Boston area” or “best pizza in Boston.”
Google offers four different keyword matching options to choose from:
- Broad Match: This is default match type that your keywords are assigned. It will allow you to reach the most extensive audience of all of these options. Yes, that may seem like a good thing, and in some cases it can be! However, be conscious of the fact that it may lead to your site being advertised in queries that are irrelevant to your business.
- Broad Match Modifier: This option gives you a bit more control than the first option. It allows you to lock certain keywords into place. All you need to do is add a “+” sign in front of the word – this lets Google know that the search needs to include that word in order to trigger your ad.
- Phrase Match: If you want to harness even MORE control over your ads, you can! With phrase match, your search term needs to be searched in the exact order of words that you specify. There can still be different words before or after the key phrase, but those specified words must be in the correct order for your ad to be triggered.
- Exact Match: This is, yes, exactly how it sounds. In order for your ad to be triggered, the searcher must type your exact phrase. Nothing before, nothing after, and nothing in the middle.
I recommend you use a combination of these 4 options when starting out. As you progress and hone your Google Ads knowledge, you will be able to figure out which version works best for you.
Step 6: Set that Keyword Bid
The keyword bid is the amount you are willing and able to pay for a click on your ad. Here, you are bidding against other sites for the highest position in the Google search console – if another site targeting your same keywords is willing to pay more for a click, they will show up higher than your ad.
Google’s Keyword Planner will tell you how much you need to bid to rank effectively.
Step 7: Write Your Ad Copy
So you’ve set it up – you know how much you are going to spend, how many keywords you are going to target, and how to run Google ads.
The final step is to write your ad. You will need to write two headlines and a short description.
Each line of text has a limited number of characters – 30 characters per headline and 90 for the description – so make sure your ad is direct and clear.
Tips to Writing Effective Google Ads:
- Keep it simple. Make sure your call to action is clear and obvious.
- Answer the user’s question. You know what they were searching for – make sure your ad is an answer to their problem.
- Include click-to-call and click-for-directions. Make it as easy as possible for the user to engage.
- Use actionable language. Tell your user what to do. It works.
- Try landing pages. Create better looking landing page experiences for searchers with a tool like Instapage.
It’s often worth trying Google Ads. It can work at some scale for some companies – who knows it could be 1% of your marketing budget or 90%.
The only way to really know is to run a small test.
Let’s say Ads works for you. What next? You can either run it yourself or hire an agency to run your campaigns and optimize daily.
Google Ads takes some work to get good at, but for many startups and small businesses, the juice is worth the squeeze.
As a next step: if you can crack the Google Ads code and create great, profitable campaigns, you might try retargeting campaigns to re-engage the audience that’s already on your website.