The Ultimate Guide to Google Ads For Beginners

If you’re looking to advertise your business online, Google Ads is one of the best options. It’s easy to use and can help you get results for any type of campaign. In this post we’ll cover everything about Google Ads from how it works to how much it costs and everything in between.

Understanding Google Ads

What is Google Ads?

Google Ads is a marketing platform that helps you run ads to reach people who are interested in your business. When someone searches for a keyword on Google, they see an ad related to their search. A website can include a list of keywords (called “keywords”) that determine which ads appear on its pages. Websites can also show ads on other websites or app properties (for example, YouTube videos) when their content matches what users have searched for or viewed before.

What is Google Ads?

Google Ads is an online advertising platform that allows businesses to reach the right audiences that are looking for your products and services. Google Ads is a pay-per-click (PPC) platform, which means you only pay when someone clicks on your ads.

Google Ads allows you to create text or image ads and target them at people who are searching for similar products or services related to yours. You can also set up campaigns that target specific types of devices such as computers, tablets, or smartphones. The good news is that there’s no cost associated with creating an account and once you do create one, it’s easy for anyone at your company to manage it using just their email address!

Why advertise on Google?

Google Ads is the best place to advertise your business. The reason for this is simple: it’s easy to use, great for reaching a large audience, and provides targeted ads that are highly relevant to your customers.

Google Ads lets you reach a huge number of potential customers by displaying your ads on relevant websites or mobile apps. You can also choose which specific people you want to see your advertisements for example, if you’re advertising a new product that only appeals to women aged 35-55 who live in Texas, Google will only show those ads to those users meaning that each impression of your ad costs less money than if they were shown universally across all web users (and so costs less per click).

Google Ads Best Practices

Use a PPC planning template.
Avoid broad keyword terms.
Don’t run irrelevant ads.
Improve your Quality Score (QS).
Optimize your ad landing page.

Google Ads Terms to Know: AdRank, Bidding

1. Use a PPC planning template.

Use a PPC planning template

This is the most important step of your entire campaign. Without proper planning, you’re likely to waste money on ads that don’t do anything or even take away from your bottom line. You can use our PPC planning template free here: https://goo.gl/9bRKDZ

Here are the steps to follow when using our template:

Go to the Google Ads homepage and create an account if you haven’t already done so (a Gmail account will work).
Create a new budget by going left in your account, then click “Budgets” in the menu on top-left side of page and then click “Get Started” at bottom left corner of next page that opens up after clicking “New Budget”. Next step will be shown below this paragraph if Google Ads isn’t connected yet with email address used above – just sign into Gmail using [email protected] (where username stands for something unique), password chosen during first login into gmail account 🙂

2. Avoid broad keyword terms.

You should also avoid broad keyword terms. These include words like “shoes” and “heels” and are the least effective for driving traffic to your site. Instead, use long-tail keywords that help you reach a more specific audience. Longer keyword phrases are more likely to drive customers directly to your site because they are more descriptive and relevant and they cost less!

To find these long-tail keywords, use a keyword research tool like Keyword Tool or Google’s own AdWords Keyword Planner. You can enter a phrase like “women’s black high heels under $100” into either tool (or both) and it will return suggestions for related phrases with much more buying intent than more general searches like “shoes for women.”

3. Don’t run irrelevant ads.

Before you run an ad, make sure it’s relevant to your business and the searchers you’re targeting. If it’s not, then don’t waste your money!

Avoid targeting keyword terms with low relevance to your business. For example, if you’re selling dog food but targeting “cat food” in search results, then this will likely result in poor performance for both clicks and conversions for each impression served.
Use the Ad Preview and Diagnosis tool: This tool helps ensure that ads are relevant by showing sample of how they will look across Google Search (mobile) and Google Display Network sites like YouTube and Gmail.

4. Improve your Quality Score (QS).

Quality Score is a measure of how relevant your ad is to the user’s search query and how well your landing page will match your ad. Improving your Quality Score can help you lower your cost per click and increase your click through rate.

To improve your QS, follow these tips:

Use relevant keywords in both the headline and body copy of your ad.
Write compelling ads with strong calls-to-action (CTAs) that match the intent of users searching for similar terms as those used in their queries.

5. Optimize your ad landing page.

Make sure your ad landing page is relevant to the ad.
Make sure it has a clear call to action.
Make sure it’s easy to navigate and load quickly.
Make sure it’s optimized for mobile devices.

Google Ads Terms to Know

AdRank: This refers to the value of your ad on Google’s algorithms. It is defined by several factors, including your AdWords bids and quality score.

Bidding: Your bid is how much you pay per click on your ads and helps determine who gets shown in the top positions for keywords. The higher your bid, the better chance you have at getting a high position in search results for specific keywords (and thus more clicks). You can adjust your bids manually or leave it up to Google’s algorithm based on competitor bids and optimization goals set by you as an advertiser.Campaign Type: Campaign type determines where ads will appear, such as mobile devices versus desktops/laptops (Mobile vs Desktop), video ads versus static text-based ads (Video vs Text), etc., which we’ll go into more detail below under “Types of Google Ads”

Click Through Rate (CTR): This refers to how many people click through from seeing an ad online back onto an advertiser’s website or landing page; it’s calculated based on total impressions divided by actual clicks received

AdRank

AdRank is an important metric because it’s the number that Google uses to decide where your ads will appear in the auction. It’s determined by a combination of your bid and Quality Score, so if you have a high AdRank, it means you’re likely to get better ad positions at lower bids than someone with a low AdRank.

We’ll talk more about how to optimize your AdRanks in our section on optimizing your campaign performance.

Bidding

Bid: Your bid is the maximum amount you’re willing to pay for a click on your ad. The actual price of your ad is determined by how much competing advertisers are bidding for the same keywords and other factors.

The higher you bid, the more likely it is that your ads will be shown (and therefore, clicked), but this may mean paying more than you would otherwise have to.

As with all things in life, there’s no free lunch: if you want an ad that gets lots of clicks, then you’ll probably have to pay a lot for each one!

Campaign Type

Campaign type is a way to group your ads, ad groups and keywords. Google Ads gives you several options for campaign types, each with its own set of benefits.

You can use campaign types to organize your ads, ad groups and keywords:

Search campaigns are for driving traffic to your website from Google Search queries.
Shopping campaigns are for driving traffic from product listing ads on Google Search or the Google Display Network (GDN).
Video campaigns are used for video snippets in YouTube search results.
App promotion campaigns are designed specifically for promoting mobile apps in the Play Store or other Android app stores such as Amazon’s Appstore or Samsung Galaxy Apps store

Click-Through Rate

Click-through rate (CTR) is the number of clicks divided by the number of impressions. It’s a useful metric to measure the success of your ads, and one that you’ll want to keep an eye on throughout your campaign.

If you have a high CTR, it means that your ad is clearly appealing to people and they’re clicking on it. That’s not always necessarily good news, though it could also mean that it’s too clickable, so much so that users are getting annoyed when they see it again and again in their feed.
Conversely, if you have a low CTR there might be something wrong with your ad copy or design that needs fixing immediately before more people get turned off by all those unclicked ads in their feed.

Conversion Rate

The conversion rate is the percentage of people who saw your ad and took an action you want them to take. For example, if 100 people saw your ad and 10 people clicked on it and converted on your landing page, then your conversion rate would be 1%.

A low conversion rate can mean that either:

People aren’t seeing your ads or
You’re not targeting the right people

Ad Extensions

Ad extensions are additional pieces of information that appear with your ad. They can be text, images, or interactive elements. Ad extensions can be used to provide more information about your business, products, or services and help make a stronger connection between users and the ads they see.

You can add up to 20 extensions per ad group at no charge or up to 3 extensions in Standard mode. If you want more than 3 Standard mode extensions, you’ll need to use Enhanced campaigns and pay for them as part of the enhanced features package (see below).

Here’s what Google recommends adding in each category:

Product or service (product name) – To showcase your product or service details like availability and pricing information;
Location (location name) – For local businesses who want their ads shown only when someone searches near their physical store location;
Call extension (phone number) – To encourage potential customers to call directly from the ad itself;
App promotion (app ID) – For apps that you’d like people who visit this website on mobile devices by clicking on an ad with your app extension attached

Display Network

Display Network is a type of ad format that allows you to show ads on sites across the internet. You can target people based on their interests, demographics, and location.

Display Network also includes:

Your own website (including mobile websites)
Sites and apps in the Google Display Network

Keywords

Keywords are the foundation of your Google Ads campaign. They’re the words or phrases that people use to search for information online, and they help you to understand what people are looking for.

Google Ads uses automated systems to choose which keywords to show your ads on, but you can also tell these systems which keywords you want them to include in their targeting. This is called “keyword targeting.”

PPC

Google Ads is a pay-per-click (PPC) advertising model that allows you to target users based on their search terms and other factors in order to drive them back to your website. You’re charged by the click, rather than how many times an ad is shown or how many people see it.

Google Ads offers a number of different types of ads and variations depending on your goals and budget, including:

Display network text ads – These are text-only ads that appear at the top or bottom of search results, as well as alongside other types of content throughout Google’s network. They’re often used for branding purposes because they’re less intrusive and more focused on grabbing attention without overwhelming visitors with information; however, they don’t allow you to track leads or conversions as closely as other formats.
Ad extensions – These help increase visibility by providing additional information about your business and products within an existing ad unit on Google Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) such as phone numbers especially if there isn’t enough room within the text section itself! When clicked upon this becomes interactive so someone viewing will know immediately what exactly needs further clarification before making up mind about whether something might be worth purchasing from company selling same product/services being advertised online via PPC campaign running constantly 24 hours per day 7 days week year round 365 days year after year until eternity ends!”

Quality Score

Quality Score is a numeric value from 1-10 that Google assigns to your account based on the quality of your ads and landing pages. Quality Score is a critical component of your PPC campaigns, as it can have an enormous impact on how much money you spend for each click. A low-quality score will result in higher costs per click (CPCs), fewer clicks, and lower ad positions. The best way to improve your Quality Score is through optimization.

Here are some tips for optimizing:

Types of Google Ads

Google Ads has many different types of ads, including text ads and image ads. In addition to these two basic ad types, Google Ads also allows you to create search ads and display ads.

Search Ads: Search ads are the most commonly used type of Google Ad. They appear at the top or bottom of a search engine results page (SERP). These are great for getting your brand name seen by new customers who are looking for your product/service.
Display Ads: Display ads are full-page graphics that can be shown on either a website’s home page or within content pages on that site (often referred to as remarketing). The key thing about display advertising is that it doesn’t take users away from the content they are interested in reading instead, it surrounds them with relevant images and text while they read other articles online!

Google Ads Benefits

Google Ads is a great way to reach potential customers and get your business or product in front of them. With Google Ads you can:

Target specific people based on their interests, location, or other factors.
Measure ROI (return on investment) so you know how well your ads are performing.
Use it to promote different aspects of your business from ecommerce stores to blog posts and events.

Google Ads Pricing

Google Ads pricing is based on several factors, including your business type and how much you spend. Here’s what you need to know about each of the different options for Google Ads pricing:

Cost-Per-Click (CPC) – This is the cost per click on a specific ad. If someone clicks on one of your ads, you’ll pay this amount. The CPC column shows how much Google will charge a business when their ads are clicked on.
Cost-Per-Viewable Impression (vCPM) – This determines how much advertisers pay based on an ad being seen by users rather than just clicked on by users, which can be important if there’s no clear indication that someone has read an ad or used it in any way after reading it (i.e., they haven’t converted yet).
Cost Per Action/Lead/Sale (CPA) – CPA costs vary depending upon whether or not conversions happened in the past 30 days; if so, then you’ll pay a certain amount per conversion during that time period; if not then this particular rate doesn’t apply and instead falls under CPL (Conversion Rate Optimization). Please see our guide below for more details regarding these two terms we’ve mentioned above!

How Does Google Ads Work?

Google Ads works by allowing you to set up campaigns and ad groups. Each campaign contains several ad groups, and each ad group contains ads related to that topic. For example, if you were running an eCommerce site selling watches and sunglasses, your first campaign might be called “Watches” with subcategories within it including “Men’s Watches” and “Women’s Watches.” In this case, the strategy would be to target specific keywords related to both men’s and women’s watches so as not to waste impressions on irrelevant traffic or drive away customers who may not care about purchasing a particular type of watch at all.

Your ads are further customized using extensions such as sitelinks (a link directly from your Google search result page) or call extensions (a clickable phone number). You can also choose whether or not you want a text-based option for those who prefer reading over listening or even choose whether you want both!

1. Set Your Goals

Before you set up any campaign, it’s important to define your goals. Why are you advertising? What do you hope to achieve? If these questions sound like they’re coming from a therapist rather than an advertising platform, that’s because they are.

If you want to use Google Ads to drive traffic and sales, then think about what success would look like for your business. Are there certain keywords or topics that bring in more business than others? Are there particular types of people who would benefit most from what you have to offer? Once again: define the goal before setting up any type of campaign by asking yourself how much money (or profit) do I need before the end of this year? How many customers would be considered a success for me overall in 2019 so far?

When formulating goals for Google AdWords, keep them SMART – specific measurable achievable relevant time-bound

2. Choose Your Keywords

Choosing your keyword is the most important part of creating an ad. You can’t just pick any word or phrase and expect results you need to use specific keywords that are relevant to your business.

Here’s how to choose them:

Use long tail keywords. These have several different words and phrases in them, rather than one or two words only (like “cheap flight tickets”). For example, instead of using “flight ticket” as your keyword, try “cheapest flight tickets from LAX to JFK.” The more specific you can be here, the more likely you’ll get clicks on your ads!
Choose keywords with low competition and high search volume. This will help ensure that people see your ads when they’re searching for exactly what you offer (and hopefully click through!).

3. Design Your Ad and Landing Page

Design Your Ad and Landing Page

Designing your ad is an important step in the Google Ads process, but it’s also one of the most challenging parts. The following guidelines will help you create an effective ad:

Make sure your design is clear, easy to understand, relevant, and not misleading or offensive.
Use a template when designing your ad so that everything looks consistent across all of your campaigns (and don’t forget to brand!).

4. Determine Your Budget and Bidding Strategy

Next, it’s time to determine your budget and bidding strategy. Your budget is how much you are willing to spend on the campaign over its lifetime, while your bidding strategy determines how much you pay each time someone clicks on an ad or performs another action (such as viewing a video).

Set a daily budget: To prevent overspending in case of sudden traffic spikes or other factors, it’s important to place limits on how much money can be spent per day. This is also helpful if you have limited funds available for Google Ads.
Set a lifetime budget: If you plan on continuing with this campaign after its initial run ends, set up a monthly budget instead of just once-off spending caps each week or month. This ensures that costs stay within reason while giving flexibility if something unexpected happens during the course of running an effective Google Ads campaign — such as getting featured in an industry news article!

5. Track Performance and Adjust Campaigns as Needed

You can use Google Analytics to track the performance of your campaign. You’ll need to set up a Google Ads account before you can access this tool.

To do this, follow these steps:

Click on the Settings tab in your dashboard and select “Accounts & Import” from drop-down menu in top right corner of page.
Select “Import a Report” from the left navigation panel and select “Google Analytics Report” from list of options displayed on screen (see image below).

Google Ads is an online advertising platform by which you can reach the right audiences that are looking for the products and services your business offers.

Google Ads will help you run ads on Google’s network of sites, including Search, Gmail, YouTube and more. You can also use it to purchase ads on publishers’ websites and mobile apps.

The Google Ads platform is an excellent tool for those who want to reach a wide range of customers. It’s easy to set up and operate, but there are many factors you’ll need to consider when planning your campaign. We hope this guide has helped you understand how Google Ads works and how best to use it in your business!