There are multiple ways to generate traffic to your website. For example, organic search can bring hundreds or thousands of visitors to a website each day through both short & longtail keyword searches as long as your website is sufficiently optimized for search. Referral traffic from other online platforms such as Blogs, Forums, or Social Media links can send people from one platform to your website. However, only with a Paid Search campaign can you define the type of person you want to bring to your site based on what they are looking for. If you have ever wondered how to create a Search Campaign in Google Ads, keep reading to learn more and be sure to contact Harv Communications if you’re ready to start your own campaign today!
While Google is one search engine, it’s not the only option. Paid Search can be utilized across several channels in different capacities. For the purposes of this Blog post, we’re going to focus just on Google Ads though. To start, it’s important to understand what Ads are and how they appear on the search engine results page. Usually, if there is an active budget by an advertiser for a particular search term in a geographically defined area, search ads will appear at the top of all organic results on page 1 of Google. To run Ads, a corresponding Google Ads account is needed to start. This includes having an active website, billing information, and campaign details including keywords, ad copy, budget (per campaign or per keyword), location targeting, dayparting, and more. From here, both static and responsive search Ads will run across the Google Network and on partner platforms (if selected).
How Does Google Ads Generate Responsive Search Ads?
Google Responsive Search Ads basically take the information you’ve provided to generate and display the most relevant Ad to your potential client or customer. It may combine the most compelling Headline with the Ad copy most likely to result in an Ad click. With any campaign, there is an element of machine learning (which takes a few weeks) in combination with the parameters you define when creating the campaign. Google learns what is working, and what is not working as well, and makes adjustments or recommendations based on performance. In the case of Responsive Search Ads, Google essentially determines the best combination of headline & description to help increase the likelihood of a click.
With any Google search campaign, it takes a few weeks of learning, adjustments, and manual optimizations to enhance performance. It also requires multiple variations of an Ad (headline, description, and, to an extent, extensions) to find the right balance to increase the click & conversion likelihood. With Responsive Search Ads, Google does much of the heavy lifting in terms of figuring out what combination works best. It’s not an exact science and still does require strong Ads in general to formulate, however, it is good to know Google is finding ways to maximize the performance of your budget rather than just taking your money for every click.
Is a Google Search Campaign Right for Your Small Business?
Generally speaking, advertising is a great way to bring a larger number of people to a website (or to a Social Media profile) during a defined time period with a predetermined budget. Once that budget runs out, the campaign ends. I would normally recommend a Google search campaign either as an evergreen strategy (always running with no defined end date) where there is continuous competition and a larger budget or a shorter campaign to capitalize on seasonality or to give a burst of traffic. A search campaign can be a great supplemental tool to a strong performing organic presence whereby it allows you to focus on the terms not performing near the top of results or allows for more concise conversion-focused links to appear above these results.
However, it is not as easy as creating a profile, adding billing information, and clicking ‘start’. Platforms like Google, Meta, or Bing are happy to accept money from anyone to promote themselves across their network. Often, the campaign launch is very simplistic but the daily budget may be used up before lunchtime. This is where optimization really comes into place to ensure the budget is being utilized sufficiently across the day, week, or month with specific targeting and bid adjustments to keep costs down. This is also where the benefits of SEO come into place to help improve organic visibility, improve the quality of the website, and thus help lower advertising costs. The first step is often to understand what your options are and which option would benefit your small business the most through consultation.
If you enjoyed this blog post, please let me know by contacting me or posting on the Harv Communications Facebook page. Always appreciate receiving questions, comments, and feedback any time! https://www.facebook.com/HarvCommunications
