How to Use Google Ads to Expand your Business
Table of contents
What are Google Ads?
Google Ads, formerly known as AdWords, are text ads. They are placed at the top of search results when people type in keywords related to that ad.
How does Google Ads work?
The great thing about Google Ads is that you only pay for them when someone clicks on the ads. The cost of the ad depends on how many other people are bidding for their ad to appear for a certain keyword.
For example: the cost of an ad for “Lawyer in Australia” would be more than “cleaner in Philippines” because the law firms would be willing to pay more for a lead and bid the price higher than cleaners in the Philippines for their search term.
For Google Ads, you can do several ad customizations based on your needs such as targeting a certain demographic or by setting your ads to appear at certain times of the day.
How to make more sales through Google Ads
The goal is to make the investment in ads worth it.
Quite often, if the ads are not well-managed, the cost of running an ad campaign is worth more than the profit made from the sales.
To improve the rate of success, you shouldn’t expect everyone to click on the ad to buy something from your business.
You can create baby steps such as to download a PDF they will find useful in exchange for their email – and the option to join your newsletter. Exposure is one of the most important things when it comes to marketing, specially in its initial stages.
Or you can use Google Retargeting – this is where ads seem to follow you around from website to website.
Google Vs Facebook
Facebook seems like a less scary option. It’s easier to manage your budget even though the cost to advertise is slightly less competitive than Google.
Google Ads manager has so many options and they don’t make it easy for you to find the right options to reduce expenditure and target your ads properly. It’s as if they want you to spend money!
However, the consensus amongst experts is that Google Ads is more cost effective (and works) once you know what you’re doing. If you are still a beginner at digital advertising, it is recommended to dabble on Facebook ads first.
This really depends on the type of business you are in and what you are selling. Good keywords are expensive and they don’t always convert.
For more information, check our article about Facebook Ads.
Landing pages
Landing pages are meant to help with conversion. They are there to help those who have clicked on an ad to give you their details or sign up.
So, instead of going to from the ad to the home page of the website, the ad takes them to a page that is specifically written for people who clicked on the Google Ad.
This would be part of what is called Sales Funnel.
When is Google Ad worth it?
Everyone wants to have free advertising in the form of being on the front page of Google. Organic search results are trusted and they don’t cost anything.
Except they do cost something. They cost years of time and money working on all manner of SEO techniques.
It is unrealistic to expect to gain traffic purely from organic search in the short term.
In the long term, maybe after several months of writing great articles that people will find, you may draw people to your website.
But if you want sales and you need them now, then Google Ads is a great option to explore.