Understanding The Basics Of Google Adwords

In this post, we will be learning more about Google Adwords – one of the many available paid traffic generation methods out there you can use to boost traffic volume to one’s website or landing page, as well as create awareness on your brand or product offering by your digital business.

What is Google Adwords?

Google Adwords is Google’s own advertising service, which allows one to place search results for your own website or landing page on Google’s search engine results page, by paying a certain amount.

To the uninitiated, the SERP is the page displayed by the web search engine in response to a query (using specific terms and phrases known as keywords) by a searcher.

Google Adwords is one of the easiest and practical ways to generate traffic to your landing page. Contrary to popular belief, the steps to it are actually quite simple and are not as pricey as some may perceive it to be.

Your advertisements with Google Adwords, will be displayed on the SERP, together with all the other paid and unpaid listings of the search engine. These types ads are positioned above the unpaid listings in the SERP. They look quite similar to the original search results, with the exception of a small green ‘Ad’ label on the listing itself, next to the web link.

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Now that you have a rough idea on what Google Adwords is, we shall look into the mechanics of how to start your own Google Adwords campaign and navigating it towards your favor.

How Does Google Adwords Work?

Keywords are the foundation of advertising with Google Adwords. Selecting the correct and relevant keywords to direct the audience to your landing page is key here.

As the advertiser, you select a keyword that a searcher might type in when they search for their particular interest on the Google search engine. Then, you create an advert that will appear on the SERP based on the keyword(s) you choose.

Bear in mind, however, that you are not the only company wanting to serve adverts for that particular keyword(s). Other companies with similar niche will also bid for a spot in the SERP.

Hence, in order for your ad to appear at all, you would have to compete against other marketers out there to be the highest bid in terms of cost-per-click (CPC). However, it is not just the highest bid for CPC that is taken into account for the projection of your ad; Google also measures your ad by its ‘Quality Score’.

Highest Bids And Quality Score

Now, let’s understand the basics of bidding.

Before we get into the specifics, one should understand the meaning of the term Cost-Per-Click – it refers to the amount you are willing to pay for every click you get on your Google Adwords advert.

Google allows one to pay the maximum bid amount of their chosen keyword. One can also select the ‘Automatic Bidding’ option if they have to adhere to a tight budget; here Google will automatically select the bid amount for you within your budget which is known as maximum cost-per-click bid, and bring you the most possible clicks within your budget.

There is no fixed rule when it comes to the bid amount you should be paying for your clicks. At the end of the day, your bid is dependent on these three important factors, which are:

 The type of campaign you’re aiming for

 The cost of your keywords

 The success rate of your keywords

To have a clearer understanding of how much you should spend on your bidding price, let’s look at this example.

Let’s say you own an online clothing line shop and you make $10 from every purchase. You see on average, 1 in 10 visits results in a purchase. If you set a maximum amount of the CPC bid to $1, you’ll break even (advertising costs = sales). Therefore to gain profit, your CPC should cost you less than $1 which means you would want to set your maximum bidding amount lesser than $1.

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Hence, choose a bid amount that works for you and the campaign that you are aiming for.

Having said that, there is also another factor that you must take into account after you have determined your bidding amount, that is the ‘Quality Score’.

Before your keywords can reach the SERP, Google will evaluate the relevance and the usefulness of your selected keywords for ads. This is to ensure that your keywords are relevant to the users. Google also looks into the quality of your landing page.

For example, if the user types in “Converse Sneakers” and your advert says “purchase your Converse here”. Once they click on your ad they would expect to be directly lead to a landing page selling Converse sneakers and not a generic homepage which is obviously not good enough and is not what the searcher wants.

This is Google’s way in ensuring that they provide users with the best possible quality results.

Again, you should take into account that a higher bid for an Adword does not necessarily buy you to your SERP display success. As a matter of fact, even if your rival’s bid is higher, it is entirely possible that you appear above their ad, as you have a better ad quality score. A better quality score for your ads with Google Adwords actually results in lower CPC rates than an ad with a higher quality score.

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