Paid search advertising promotes your content visibility in search engine result pages (SERP). With this advertising program, the search engine places your ads on the first page of search engine results based on what users are searching for. For both Google and Bing, the two most popular search engines on the internet today, sponsored listings appear before organic search results. They have an accompanying green box indicating that they are advertisements. Therefore, they are more visible to people, and this increases the click-through rates. Pay per click (PPC) is the standard form of search advertising where you pay for ads based on the number of clicks they receive. When done the right way, paid search advertising can help grow your website traffic and your business significantly, whether large or local.
Table of Contents
The Backend of Search Advertising
To appear on the sponsored ads section, you first join the advertising platform (Google Ads or Bing Ads) where you compete with other people looking to rank for the same keywords as you. Such a platform can be set up by your paid search ad agency or yourself. On Google, Google ads are the official platform (Google AdWords before 2019). That is where website owners create and manage a Google Ads campaign. Generally, the platform guarantees maximum ROI for as long as you can target your campaigns with relevant keywords and phrases. Therefore, specific and meaningful ads may appear more times on the SERPs, and you will pay a lower fee per click.
Your advert’s quality with the selected keywords is a primary determinant of how it ranks on the ad placement algorithm. The quality score often measures your ad’s usefulness to the user, the quality of the content on your landing page, and your click-through rates. Additionally, your maximum CPC bid influences how you rank on the paid search advertising system. More specifically, the Ad Rank is a multiple of the CPC bid and the quality score. Higher values have better ranks and have better chances of appearing as sponsored ads.
Advertising With Google Ads
The Google Ads platform is an efficient Google Ads campaign management tool. It allows you to set up the campaign from beginning to end and afterward monitor the results. Advertising with google ads is as easy as creating a google ads account, choosing the right keyword or phrase, and setting up billing.
See the steps below.
Set up your Google Ads account
To join the competition for the first spot on Google SERPs, you first need to set up an account through which you will initiate and manage campaigns. You will need to have a google account to set up and link an ads account.
Choose where your target audience lives
The best thing with google ads is that you choose the location where your target audience lives. The location can be a country, a city, or a zip code(s).
Keyword selection
Selecting the keywords, you want to rank for is essential should be done with care. First, I already told you the keywords impact the ad’s quality and thus affect its ranking. Therefore, choosing the right keywords can drive traffic in the thousands, while a mistake in selecting could lead to a low ROI. Luckily, keyword selection is straightforward through the Google Keyword planner, the Bing Keyword Research Tool, or a host of third-party tools available on the internet.
Keyword research tools often display the potential phrases you can use, alongside their search volume and the estimated costs.
Picking the match types
A user can either use your selected keyword or its variation. An exact match means that the user typed the keyword as you picked it on the search bar. A phrase match means that users must enter the keyword phrase you choose alongside other words for your ad to show up in the browser. Two other commonly used match criteria are modified broad match where a user can split your keyword phrase and insert new words in between and broad match where your ad appears on the search results page for generic search terms and their synonyms.
Create the ads
At this step, you have pretty much everything you need to create the ads that will show when a user’s input meets the search criteria you chose in the previous step. Each ad should contain one keyword for the best performance in Google Ads advertising, 2-30 words headlines, and an 80 characters description. Notice that requirements for ads may differ depending on your paid search ad agency.
Place your bids and add extensions
Here you decide how much you can afford to pay every time a user clicks on your ad. Most of the available PPC management platforms will guide you through the bidding process and even suggest the amount you should pay for a particular keyword. Sticking with the suggested Max. PPC works well for most people, but users can change it to any convenient value. Remember, the ad rank is a multiple of the quality score and your CPC bid.
Launch and track
Once you have created the ads, they will propagate on the paid Ad display agency network within hours, and you can track the results on the same platforms. You need to know that ads created in the Bing Ads advertising system will only appear in the Bing search engine search result pages while those made in the Google network are local to the search engine. However, you may target different search engines by using third-party ad placement networks, which place your ads on search engine platforms. That way, you will have a wider reach, but you may have to pay higher amounts per click.
Are you ready to appear on the sponsored search results?
Search advertising has been around the internet for as long as search engines have existed. New websites use search advertising to create brand awareness, gain confidence in the users, and generate leads. Most ad display networks allow users to adjust the Max. CPC after creating adverts, and this is an excellent opportunity for you to experiment with the bid. For instance, you may decide to increase the bid amount for a particular keyword if it drives more traffic than the rest. However, there is no guarantee that a high bid amount will give your ad more visibility. Remember, the quality of the ad and the landing page also affect how your ad ranks. Sponsored search advertising works well when combined with organic search optimization, among other techniques. Combining such tactics delivers long term results that may remain plans if you only implement sponsored search advertising.
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