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Google Ads: What Are Google Ads & How Do They Work?

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Google Ads: What Are Google Ads & How Do They Work?

Blog / Google Ads: What Are Google Ads & How Do They Work?
what are google ads

Google Ads: What Are Google Ads & How Do They Work?

Google Ads : Here we are, decades later and possibly living in the golden age of information.

There are 2.3 million searches on Google alone, every second, and guess what the majority of the search results are? That’s right, Google ads; those annoying websites that fill up the first part of your screen anytime you google something.

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Being on the other end of the screen, you might dismiss these ads as irrelevant, and did I mention annoying?

Yet Google ads are so much more; they are the best way for you to take the guesswork out of advertising your business online.

They are the little workers that you hire to drive paid traffic to your site and attract relevant attention to your business.

You need to learn a little about Google ads before running some of your own, and in this post is all the information you need. And no, it is not nearly as expensive as you might think.

Google ads; What are They?

Currently, and every day since September of 2014, the world wide web hosts over 1 billion websites.

The very thought of this is scary. Think about where your recently opened site fits in all this, and after you realize that it is just a speck in a world that will only continue to grow, you will understand the importance of Google ads. 

Google ads is a Google advertising service that allows your website to come up on the search engine’s results.

google advertising service

It is a way to attract attention to your site, something that you might need considering the odds created by the millions of websites out there. You will, of course, have to pay for this service.

Sitting back and waiting for your site to somehow get discovered by the world will not do any good for your business, but lucky for you, Google ads is here to get your business noticed by more people, sorry, I meant to say more relevant people.

The What, When, How, and Who of Google Ads.

When you look something up on Google, I am sure you have noticed the first results that come up are usually marked with a green or yellow ‘Ad’ label. 

These are paid search results, and although they might resemble organic results that occupy the rest of the screen, a Google SERP (Search Engine Results Page) will display your website on the top or the side when you run a Google ad for it.

google play music

A banner ad from Google Play

That is the basic functioning of Google ads, but there is so much more, Google also offers AdSense and Display Ads; other forms of marketing that allow you to extend your reach online.

Let’s dive in a little deeper and find out why these ads are relevant to your business.

How do Google Ads Work?

These ads are mainly focused around keywords, and keep in mind that I used ‘mainly’ and not ‘only.’

You have to choose a few keywords that you believe your potential customers will use, and I know you hate to hear this, but you will not be the only one.

Google then offers a bid for the advertisers who have selected particular keywords.

The more you pay Google per the number of visitors who click on your ad, the more our site will appear on the SERP. Here is an example:

If you run a business in the legal profession and you offer divorce law services to clients, then you might want to focus your ads on keywords like ‘divorce lawyer’ or ‘divorce attorney.’ Get the idea?

So each time a visitor searches any of the two words, your site will appear on the top of the SERP. The amount of money you pay is, however, not all that Google takes into consideration.

There is something else they use; quality score.

What is Your Quality Score? And Why it Matters.

Is your ad relevant to the searched word? Is your landing page equally relevant to your visitors? How many clicks has your ad previously received?

You need to get your quality score as high as possible. If your ad says ‘divorce attorney available here’ and a user types ‘divorce attorney,’ then the advertisement needs to redirect them to a landing page that gives them exactly what you advertised; a divorce attorney.

If your landing page is simply your generic web page, then Google will rank your quality score as low. It does not matter how much you bid, if your quality score is not good enough for Google, then your ad will appear less.

Here is what a high quality score will get you:

– More exposure

Your ads will appear on the SERP more, and rather than be displayed on the bottom of the page where users hardly look, the ads you run will be first on the results page.

– Reduced Costs

Google will charge you less for your ad if you keep your quality score high enough. You will invest little in advertising and get a significantly higher return as long as you keep your score high.

Let’s Talk About the Money

So Google takes your bid and then evaluates your quality score to determine whether or not your ad will appear on the SERP. Here is the formula Google used to calculate the amount of money for each click, or rather CPC (Cost Per Click) for each ad:

‘Ad Rank of the Competition/ The Quality Score + 0.01.’

The cost, as in the formula, changes depending on the competition on the keyword you selected and your quality score, but it also changes based on your physical location. In the United States, for instance, the average CPC Google charges is $2.32.

google adwords

You can also choose to pay after every 1000 times your Google paid ads appear on the SERP. It is called the cost per impression (CPM).

This is a less common method of payment among advertisers because it does not require a visitor to actually click on your ad, but I thought I would let you know that it is still an option.

How does the Bidding Process Work?

You can either pick a maximum bid amount or let Google decide that for you automatically. Your budget will determine how many clicks/ views you will get from users. The bidding process is that simple.

bidding process

I know we are not five years old anymore, but here is a fun fact; when you type a word in a Google search box, it takes about 0.26 seconds for the results page to load.

In this time, Google AdWords looks up all the advertisers that bid for the keyword you searched, ranks them according to their CPC amount and quality scores, and then displays the relevant ads on the SERP. Impressive right?

Why You Should Use Google Ads for Your Business.

When you hear Google AdWords, your mind should instantly wander to Online Marketing, and it should because that’s precisely what it is. Statistically speaking, we have more than 2.1 billion smartphone users in the world today.

Google, being one of the largest search engines, covers at least half of that population.

This means that if your advert gets posted for just one day, it will reach a significant number of consumers both locally and internationally.

An excellent example of people who benefited from these Google paid ads dates back to 2013. Over 1.5 million enterprises cashed in more than $111 billion worth of income via the Google search engine and its vast variety of advertising tools.

With Google AdWords, you also get a chance to optimize your advertising. You get to choose where your advertisement appears, and so you can specifically target your market of interest.

A proper demonstration would be business people in the fashion industry; they get a chance to choose where to post their adverts, and since they know their target clearly (millennials),

they are most likely to come across these commercials in specific sites where most young people visit, say Facebook or Instagram.

How to Target your Campaigns

It is not just about bidding and improving your quality score, and neither is it about getting the most views on your ad. you want to get traffic to your site, but you mainly want to catch the attention of people who will actually buy your products and pay for your services.

Without a targeted audience, you will be wasting your money, that is the blunt truth. Choose your keywords wisely, and make sure you design your landing page with your audience in mind.

You could also use an AdWords performance grading tool like WordStream to make sure your campaign is appropriately targeted.

Google ads is simply a tool at your disposal; it is up to you to use it to build your business.

It is possible to spend thousands on your ads, and even get thousands of views on your website and still no sell any products.

Targeting your campaigns is just as important as improving your quality score.

Lean in For the Closing

I hope you learned a lot about Google ads, and if you did, don’t forget to share the article and help someone else learn how to advertise their business online.

Google ads is a service that has, over the years, helped me promote a lot of my services online, and it might not seem like it at the beginning, but you will get relevant traffic your website.

Give it a shot today and let me know how it goes.

Don’t sit and wait for your website to make its way up the ranks when you have a direct connection with Google. And let’s face it, no site ever makes it to success through organic means, at least not anymore.

You don’t have to agree with all I have said in this post. Let me know what I am missing by sharing your views in the comments section.

Let’s get the conversation going.

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