Your site is done, contents or products are on standby, and you’re ready. All that’s left is for people to come to visit your site. Unfortunately, gaining traction organically can prove to be difficult. Establishing a prominent online presence takes time.
Most consider taking a quicker route to customer reach, i.e. spending money on advertisements. It’s not for nothing either. According to Google, a well-made ad has a conversion rate of 4%. It doesn’t seem much but multiply it by the thousands of people it’s shown to, and you’ve got a lot of customers.
Here, we’ll guide you on how to use Google Ads to drive traffic and conversions to your site. Get the best Return on Investment (ROI) by implementing our strategies below.
Key Takeaways
- Traffic is just the number of people your ads reached out to while conversions are the number of sales made through the traffic.
- Identifying your target audience is the key to any ad. They’ll help determine your keywords, ad type, and campaign lengths.
- Indicate benefits, strong calls to action, link extensions, and responsiveness to your advertisements for the best results.
- Refine your advertisement methodologies through trials and analytics tracking.
- Avoid any false practices through any advertisement platforms as they’ll give bad rep and penalties.
Introduction to Google Ads
Google Ads is an advertising platform that allows businesses to reach newer people and gain customers. The platform works for all businesses, regardless of size or background. It uses a pay-per-click (PPC) model meaning advertisers only have to pay when someone clicks on their ad. It’s a cost-effective approach to advertising, a win for both Google and advertisers.
If you want to establish an online presence through advertising, it’s best recommended you use Google Ads. With Google Ads, advertisers can target specific keywords and demographics to reach their ideal audience.
What is The Difference Between Traffic and Conversions?
Simply put, the number of people who click on your ad and are redirected to your website is ad traffic. It indicates the number of people the ad reached out to.
Conversions refer to the traffic that resulted in a purchase or required action. It can be anything from a sale to filling up emails for newsletters, anything. Conversions indicate how successful your ad was in gaining new customers.
Traffic is a measure of volume while conversions are a measure of performance. Both are important for a business, so they can’t really be put one over the other.
How To Use Google Ads | Planning Your Google Ads Strategy
It’s kind of a rhetorical statement but you’ll need a Google Adsense account to begin first. Don’t have it? Start right away!
- Identifying Your Target Audience
Identifying your target audience is important for creating ads. It’s the foundation of your advertisement as you’ll build your ad focusing on the audience.
Make sure you know what you’re selling. To whom are your products concerned? If you have a business for cakes, you’ll need to target audiences that love pastries.
Conduct market research and understand the demographics of your current customers. If you want minute details, include age, gender, interests, and locations. Finding an effective customer pattern is essential as it’ll help you get more customers in the long run.
Consider all your competition. There’s a lot to learn from them, the strategies they use, and all the gaps in the market you can fill. - Set Target Goals and KPIs
KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are used for tracking your performance. Once your target is set, you can begin your ad campaign. Whether it’s to get more brand awareness, generate leads, boost sales or improve customer engagement, KPIs help track how well your campaign is going.
You will determine the KPIs that’ll help track your progress. Supposedly, if your target is to increase the traffic to your website, your KPI should be the number of people that visit your site during the campaign. It isn’t just limited to the people visiting your site. It can be CTRs, ROI, CPAs, and much more.
Set up your campaign goals and KPIs to help determine how well your ad is doing. It’ll help provide essential analytics to improve your ads. - Determining Budget and Timeline
Your budget depends on the size of your business. Most probably you’re a small or decent-sized business wanting to know how the industry works. Well if you’re one of the big shots, glad to be of help. Budgeting and timeline work hand in hand. If you want your ads to stay for a longer timeline, you’ll need a higher budget. If it’s for a short time like for a few weeks, it’ll cost less. Make sure to know what you’ll be paying for.
Keyword Research and Selection
Keywords direct users to the information they’re looking for. Chances are, you can help drive traffic to your website and increase conversions if you have the right keywords. The same strategies can be used for keyword selection as you did for finding out your key audience.
Conduct keyword research to find out high-value keywords. High-value keywords are more likely to be searched by users. There are multiple free/paid keyword planner tools that help you find keywords. (Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, Ahrefs). Look for keywords that have high search volume but low competition as it’s difficult to try and rank among the most competent ones.
Try Keyword Research with Growfore for in-depth competitor analysis.
Make sure you optimize your keywords by regularly reviewing and updating your keyword lists. Tracking your analytics is important so you can find flaws and fix them accordingly.
Ad Creation Process
While we aren’t the best in terms of creating advertisements, we know what’ll work best for everyone.
- Highlight Benefits
Highlighting the benefits of your products/services/site is better than listing the features. Benefits one-up the competition while making sure your advertisement is not densely packed with information (a big no-no).
- Have a Strong Call To Action
Make sure your advertisements encourage the audience to take action by using clear and compelling language. You can see this in practice in so many advertisements all over. “Apply Now”, “Do this”, “Do that” and all that.
- Be Creative
In this world full of saturated things, try to keep your advertisement fresh and creative. Try out new things and experiment with different ad formats to see what fits. Keep up to date with the current trends and gags so you can resonate with your audience more.
- Add Extensions To Your Ads
Make sure you have a direct link from your ads to specific relevant sites. No use of your ads if all they do is redirect to 404s. Another thing, if you are not advertising a product, try to not include the price. It’ll kind of force out a conversation with the buyer, giving more chances for a sale.
- Keep Things High Quality
Use high-quality images that are clear and concise. Don’t use dull or unmatching colors as they won’t grab the viewer’s attention. We know simple and concise is the way. Overloading your ad with too much information won’t do you any good.
Responsive Ads
The types of ads that adapt to display sizes of all types are known as responsive ads. These ads work on all devices regardless of their screen sizes. Responsive everything is the best practice for any advertiser/website owner.
Learn More about Responsive Sites and Their Importance
Use high-quality images for your responsive ad that does not lose clarity even when resized.
Launching and Monitoring Your Campaigns
Your ads are now set. They’re clear, visually appealing, and well-strategized. All that’s left is to launch the campaigns.
Make sure your budget is set realistically and aligns with your goals. Your KPIs should be well monitored through the help of analytics tools provided by Google Adsense themselves. These data are key to helping modify your advertisements accordingly.
Once you know which keywords are performing better, try to increase their bid. The higher you bid for the keyword per click, the more likely it’ll be shown to others. As for the ones that aren’t performing that well, just decrease their PPC.
Ad Testing and Refining
A common testing method to refine your ads used by most advertisers is the A/B type. You create two identical versions of the same advertisement and place the campaign. The ads will only have slight differences from each other like the color, fonts, contrasts, and placements.
You’ll automatically know which ad performs better through analytics. Use it to refine your campaign for better performance and user interaction.
In conclusion, Google Ads are a sure-proof way of gaining traction in the online world. If done correctly, it’ll act as momentum to help consolidate your online presence further.
As time goes on, make sure you scale your campaign accordingly. Research the market, find better practices, and experiment with your ads.
Go with hit-and-trial methods, you’ll find better ways of advertising. With time, you’ll be ready to go for international markets through ads in various languages, better bids, and geotargeting.
Do keep clear of any false practices in advertising. They’re illegal and go against Google’s Ad Policies. Read more on Google’s Ad Policies here. The last thing you’ll want is a penalty and a stop before you can even start.
Well then, that’s it. Happy Advertising!
