You’ve brilliantly set up your hosting account, designed your new website, had a launch for it, and now you’re wondering how to drive more traffic to it. Every day thousands of websites are added to the ever-growing internet universe and you need an efficient way to reach new visitors, drive traffic that converts and ensures your site’s visibility. Sure, there are many marketing tools you can use to do just that, but one of the quickest, sure-fire ways to have maximum online visibility is to use Google Ads.

Google Ads, formerly known as Google Adwords, is the advertising platform that ensures your website gets the traction it needs. This article is going to break down why you should use Google Ads, the advantages, how to set up your account, the best practices to use for ads, a quick guide to setting up campaigns, how to measure your performance, and who should use Google Ads.

Table of Contents

Why Use Google Ads

It’s no secret that Digital Marketing and Advertising can become costly and time-consuming. With Google Ads, your advertising budget tends to stretch much further while driving the organic traffic your website, blog or eCommerce store. So, what exactly makes Google Ads a great option for your online business?

1. Your Ad will have a Wider Reach

With Google Ads, the audience reach for advertising is one of the largest. Not only will your ad show up in Google’s search engine but, what’s more, is that it will be featured on all of Google’s platforms. This includes the audiences of YouTube, and Gmail just to name a few. That’s an audience of billions of people every day. Google advocates that the overall reach of Google Ads is 90% of all internet users, making it the ultimate in .

2. Targeting Options

Savvy website owners understand that, while reaching a significant number of people is important, reaching the ‘right people’ is the definitive goal of advertising. One of the greatest features of Google ads is that it allows you to specifically target your audience by which search terms your ads show up for, who sees your ads based on demographics and the types of sites they are placed on in the Google display network.

3. Pay Per Click

Another excellent feature of Google Ads lies in the pay structure. You only pay when a person clicks on your ad and visits your website. This works out great for tracking and tailoring your advertising budget.

4. Faster Results

Out of all the advertising and marketing tools available for digital marketing, Google Ads works the fastest. While using web tactics like SEO for your pages helps, it takes a lot longer to yield results. Google Ads exposes your website to billions of internet users daily and ensures that your brand is seen and receives more clients.

Advantages of Google Ads

It works faster than using SEO and other marketing tools in isolation.
There is a wider spread brand awareness.
Reach more people right from their Gmail Inbox. Google Ads allows your brand and website to be visible via Email.
Reconnect with visitors from your website. For those visitors that simply came and had a look around and left, Google Ads will retarget them on other pages to get them to come back and convert. More on this later.
Measure your advertising performance more consistently.
Connect Google Ads with Google Analytics and explore more with you Ads account. With both tools working together you can see just how visitors are interacting with your page and your brand.
Have your brand and website viewed by up to 90% of internet users daily.

How to Set-up Your Google Ads Account

Setting up your account on Google Ads is quick and pretty easy to do on your own. Once you are on the Google Ads page simply click on the green button labeled “Start Now” to begin.

Complete the form with your email address and the other information in the fields about the website you will be promoting.
Note, you will need to sign up with a Google Account, so your Gmail or Google Analytics account would work great here. Use that email address to sign up.
Once complete, simply log into your account and you are ready to begin.

Best Practices for Using Google Ads

You’ve set up your Ads account and now you are ready to dive into creating your Google Ads but wait, before diving into the deep end, you should first take some time to get to know Google Ads and how best it can work for you. Here are 6 practices you should use to get the most out of Google Ads.

Set Your Goals:

Design your Google Ads around the goals you wish to achieve. Sit down and consider what you want to accomplish. Do you want new leads? Longing for more conversions? Do you wish to have a wider reach for your brand? Whatever your goals are, map them out and then tailor your Ads to help achieve them.

Do Keyword Searches:

Create a list of keywords associated with your brand and what you have to offer. Your list of keywords will be integral to the campaigns you set up for search. You want to ensure your ads are keyword rich so that when users search in Google your brand and website is at the forefront.

Prioritize the Relevance:

Know your customers, understand your demographic and then target your ads to them. Keywords are integral to this practice as well. Though knowing your audience goes a long way to ensuring that your ads are specifically targeting them and making them want to click and then convert. Make sure that your ad is relevant to your brand and what your users will see when they click through your website.

Test Run Your Ads:

Trial and error is the name of the game here. You have to test your ads to see how they work and how your audience interacts with them. Use a variety of ads, with various pictures, different wording and targeting to collect data on how well they work with your intended audience. Again, knowing your audience is key here and understanding what they want. It will take time to truly make ads that perfectly target your audience.

Use Re-targeting:

Getting a user to visit your website is an accomplishment for sure but getting them to come back, again and again, is the ultimate goal. Take full advantage of the retargeting feature of Google Ads. It is designed to retarget the people that visited your website before while they are on any page in the Google Display Network. It works by showing those same users specific ads for products they may have viewed on your website, and by showing them fresher ads to make them come back.

Polish and Enhance the Ad Experience as you go:

Take full advantage of the analytics that Google Ads provides and use them to redefine, polish and enhance your ads. Pay close attention to the data Google Ads provide and use it to improve your campaigns over time. If you manage your ads well, you can expect to see better results the longer you use the platform. Which will lend to your overall quality score and how you pay for your ads as well.

Who Can and Should Use Google Ads?

Google Ads may not necessarily be one-size fits all advertising hack for all businesses. What works for one company may not work for another but that being said. Google Ads is powerful and if employed correctly can exponentially grow your user following and lead to high conversions.

If your business meets the following criteria then Google Ads is perfect for you and will help you grow your business, its web-based following, and your brand’s awareness exponentially.

The Checklist of Criteria:

Your audience is web-based.
Keywords associated with your business and brand are being searched a lot on google. To find out use Google Keywords to see what’s trending.
Are online influencers, bloggers, magazines and other content websites writing about your product, or service?
Are you competitors investing online?

If you met this criterion then Google Ads is the perfect advertising solution for your business. Now it’s time to get started and take your online visibility to the next level.