Google AdWords Tutorial
Getting visitors to your website can be challenging. All websites need visitors in order to achieve their goals, but getting them and knowing how to get them are two very different things.
If you don’t follow free methods for generating traffic such as social media or content marketing, then your next logical option would be paid advertising. You probably already know this, but Google offers an advertising platform for their search engine called Google AdWords.
To explain it simply, AdWords, or Google Ads, is a tool that manages the advertising that appears on Google.
Through it, you can create different campaigns for your website, products, etc. Advertising with this tool is controlled through a system of bids and keywords. Each advertiser can bid on a keyword so that their ad appears on search engine results pages for specific keywords.
Example
Let’s say that you have an eCommerce store that sells makeup products and you want to advertise them.
You will need to choose which products you want to advertise and create an AdWords campaign for them.
This is done by choosing some keywords that you want to bid on.
A keyword is a search phrase – buy eyeliner, cheap mascara, etc.
A bid is how much you’re willing to pay per click on your advertisement – 0.15c per click, $1 per click, etc.
So you could create a campaign spending $5 daily for example centered around similar keywords to try and get targeted traffic to your website.
Where Do Google Ads Appear?
AdWords enables you to be present in several places:
Search Network
Advertising on the Google Search Network are all the ads that appear among search results in text format. Whenever it is advertising bears the green “ad” badge next to the URL.
Display Network
The Google Display Network is made up of more than two million websites and mobile applications that allow the insertion of third-party advertising. These are the banner ads that you see displayed on some websites.
You as an advertiser can create campaigns for the Display Network and decide on which pages you want your ads to appear. Or, if you prefer, to what audience, depending on their interests.
Google Shopping
Google Shopping is a product comparison engine, just like Booking.com, for example, is a comparison engine for hotels.
If you have an online store you can include your catalog in Google Shopping so that your products appear before related searches. In addition, your products may appear in the results of ads when a user does a normal Google search. Try searching “white sneakers” and you will see just before the text ads some boxes with products and prices in them.
YouTube
Ads on YouTube are separately configured through their platform but still come under the Google umbrella. Video advertising could also be very effective for you depending on your niche.
Google AdWords Metrics
When you start to learn Google AdWords you will come across a lot of different terminologies. It’s important that you know the meanings and definitions of all the terms as it could help you optimize your campaigns better.
Volume
The amount of searches a keyword gets per month on Google.
Competition
The number of advertisers who are bidding on a specific keyword.
People are often mistaken in thinking that this means the difficulty for ranking this keyword in the search engine results.
Competition just means the level of advertisers there are for a specific keyword; nothing else.
Clicks
The total number of times a user will/has clicked on one of your ads. You can see how many clicks have been made on your campaign, on an ad group, on a specific ad, or on a specific keyword.
Impressions
It’s the number of times your ads have been shown on Google. They are directly related to searches.
A word like “cheap waterproof boots” will have many more searches in the rainy months than in summer, therefore, it is likely that your ads will show more (get more impressions) in these months. Like clicks, you can analyze them by campaigns, ad groups, ads or keywords.
CTR
This stands for Click Through Rate. If your advertisement had 100,000 impressions but only 1,000 clicks, then your CTR is 1%.
The CTR, therefore, is defined as the percentage of clicks on impressions or, what amounts to the same thing, the number of clicks divided by the number of impressions.
CPC
CPC (Cost Per Click) is a very common type of advertising on the Internet. In Google Adwords, every time a user clicks on an ad, they will charge you an amount of money. What amount? The one that you establish as the CPC. Keep in mind with AdWords the amount you establish will not be exact and the CPC will vary.
Average CPC
Even if you set a maximum CPC of $1, not all clicks have to cost $1. Sometimes, your competitors will have established a lower bid and only have to pay, for example, $0.80c. The Google Adwords system means that you automatically bid only the maximum amount necessary for your ad to be positioned.
The average CPC is, therefore, the average of the CPCs you have had in your ads, that is, the average price charged for a click on your ad.
Average Position
The simple fact of investing in AdWords or setting a very high bid (CPC), does not guarantee that you will appear in the first results, this also depends on the quality of your ads and other factors that are involved.
Sometimes your ad will achieve the first position and, at other times, it will only reach the fifth (it also depends on what your competition does). This metric is an average of all the positions you have reached during a period of time.
Conversions
Normally, when you decide to create a Google AdWords campaign, your goal is to appear better positioned in Google to sell more. Once the user clicks on your ad and arrives at your web page, they will sometimes make a purchase (convert) and sometimes not.
Therefore, the number of conversions corresponds to the number of goals achieved with your website. Normally these objectives are sales, but they can also be information forms requested, telephone calls etc.
Google AdWords Tutorial
Sign Up
To create an AdWords account you only need a Gmail account, your credit card or account number, and to indicate the website where you want users to click on your ad.
AdWords Express or AdWords
As soon as you sign up, the tool should ask if you want to use the Express version or the normal version. The first one is specially made for people who want the process to be less technical and easier to figure out. It has fewer configuration options, and the idea is to facilitate the publication of ads in a few steps.
If you’re not asked, you can sign up for AdWords Express here.
If you are new to this, it can be a good option. But if you want to get the most out of your ads, then you should go to the normal version.
The first thing you should know with using Google AdWords is the hierarchy or levels that exist in the tool:
Account: The upper level, where you configure the general parameters such as language, currency, and time zone and billing.
Campaign: This is where you set the budget, the location or geographical area to which you want to target or the type of advertising (whether they will be text, image, video or product listings).
Ad Groups: Each campaign consists of ad groups, and serve for better segmentation. Each one must have their own ads and their own keywords with bids set for them.
Google AdWords Keywords
When you are logged into your AdWords account you will see these options on the menu:
Click on “Tools” followed by “Keyword Planner” so you can begin.
Next, you should be presented with two options:
Find new keywords
Get search volume and forecasts
If you have done keyword research already using tools such as Keyword Finder and Keywords Everywhere then you could go straight to get search volume and forecasts to validate them.
Input your keywords on your chosen section to see the results.
Different Types of Keywords
Matches: It’s good to start with a modified broad phrase and match, but when you find the best keywords pass them to exact match in another ad group. You can work them separately and improve their performance.
Broad: You let Google include synonyms and any related search. To use it you must write the keyword without any symbol. For example: buy mens shoes
Modified Broad: You let related words be included but the term you type with a + symbol in front. For example: buy + mens shoes. If someone writes buy womens shoes this would be activated and cost you money, so keep an eye on where we put the +.
Phrase: The word or words in quotation marks are included, and the searches that trigger the ad must contain the words you have quoted. For example: “buy mens shoes”.
Exact: The word is written in square brackets: [buy mens shoes]. Here, only the ad will be activated if this search phrase is written, accepting plurals and slight variations such as spelling mistakes.
Negative Keywords: You can, and should, tell Google that you should turn off ad delivery for specific keywords. For example, the words “for free”.
We clicked on “Find new keywords” and searched for “white sneakers”.
Now we can see some related keywords to what we searched and some additional information.
On the far right side, it shows you the recommended bids for the low and high ranges.
Basically, the lower you bid, the lower your ad will appear in the search engine results. If you were to take the recommendation for the high bid, then your ad would appear near the top of the search engine results. This affects how many clicks your ads will get and thus, the potential revenue you can generate from them.
Remember, competition is the level of other advertisers bidding on these keywords. So these keywords we were given have companies advertising on them frequently.
This isn’t a bad thing, as it shows the keywords could be profitable. It could also mean that you have to bid more per click though in order to get your ad seen and generate a decent amount of traffic.
You can select your keywords from here if you want and then click on “Add to plan” when the blue bar appears at the top.
After this, you can click on “View Forecast” and then set your bids.
Google AdWords Bidding
The ad serving in AdWords works with a bidding system. You set a maximum cost per click for each keyword, which will be your bid.
Google wants your ads to be as relevant as possible, and that’s why they have a parameter called Quality Level, a rating from 0 to 10. It is associated with each keyword you bid, and the higher it is, the more competition your ads will face.
Therefore, the position that each ad will occupy in Google searches is the result of multiplying your bid by the level of quality.
And also, the price you’ll pay for each ad will not be your bid, but a penny more than the previous ad bid. This way, the ads are balanced, rewarding the most relevant ones, and causing the price of each keyword not to be inflated as much.
AdWords Bid Strategy
When you set up your first campaign, one of the things to know is how to configure your bidding strategy.
Maximum Clicks: AdWords will set the maximum bid for you to appear in the top positions.
Maximize Conversions: You must first configure the conversions, which are the actions that the user must perform on your web page; a sale, leaving contact information, or a phone call. It’s a good automatic strategy once your ads are starting to receive enough clicks because in order to use it you must have at least 30 conversions registered in a month.
Target CPA: Cost per Acquisition. Here you must tell the tool the maximum cost you are willing to pay for each conversion. This way, AdWords will try to get you conversions below a certain cost, as long as it fits in with the competition. If the cost per click for the word “emergency plumber” costs $20 and you tell AdWords to spend $1, you’re wasting your time.
Manual CPC: With the previous AdWords bidding strategies we listed the bids are established automatically. Here, you are the one that indicates the maximum cost for each keyword. It is a more laborious strategy, but one that gives more control.
AdWords Ad Copy
Then you have to configure the different ads that will be shown when someone types the keywords you have chosen. It is very important that these ads contain the keywords that trigger them. You will gain relevance and a better level of quality.
You should also include other relevant information to attract the user such as discounts, promotions, shipping time, etc. and a call to action such as “Shop Now!” to encourage the user.
Google has even included some AdWords ad copy tips for you to follow.
Once your copy is written and you have tweaked and completed all of the parameters you can start your campaign.
Google AdWords Analytics
Finally, once you have your first campaign ready, leave it for a few days to start collecting data.
You can generate your own reports, although the ones offered by Google by default are very complete.
It is also very interesting to know from which devices your traffic comes from as this enables you to optimize your campaigns better.
You could discover that most of your visitors come from a specific device or location and you can then tweak your ads accordingly for them to maximize your potential results.
Always monitor your AdWords analytics so you know your audience better and how you can tailor your ads for them.