Google Ads, formerly Google Adwords, is an advertising program created by Google. It is Google's largest source of revenue and is considered the most effective online advertising method in the world. Google Ads allows you to reach search engine users. This is done using keywords. You advertise in the (paid) Google search results. You can recognize Google Ads by the fact that they are at the top or right of the search engine results. This blog discusses various ways in which you can advertise via Google.

Benefits of Google Ads

Google Ads has a lot of advantages. So you can through Google Ads achieving results from moment one. In addition, you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. You decide how much you want to spend on your advertisements, so you maintain control over the budget.

Google can show highly targeted advertisements to consumers. This makes Google Ads a very interesting advertising program for companies. For example, if you want to sell baby stuff, Google can use the information they have about people to reach anyone they think has a baby. Google Ads is responsible for around 97% of Google's total revenue, so that's definitely something to think about!

Keywords

Google Ads offers you the opportunity to advertise on certain keywords that are relevant to your website or webshop. In the program you purchase certain keywords that people search for in Google and keywords that are also relevant to your website.

An effective campaign starts with choosing the right keywords. It can be difficult to determine which keywords to use for your campaign. When choosing keywords, it's important to ask yourself: What would people who might be interested in what I offer be looking for? You naturally want to attract as much relevant traffic as possible, because with Google Ads you pay per click. Some tips to attract relevant traffic are, for example, to be specific in the keywords. Make sure they are closely related to your website. You can also use variations of keywords, such as a plural form.

Quality score and competition

There are two important factors that play a major role in whether your ad appears in the search engine results, namely the Quality Score and the competition.

The quality score is based on relevance and click behavior. This means that Google looks at how relevant your ad is for the keyword and how relevant the underlying page is. This involves looking at how many people click on your ad compared to the competition. The quality score is a score between 1 and 10, with 10 being the best score.

Competition means that the more competition there is, the more you have to pay for a click. If a keyword is relevant and generates a lot of traffic, there is a good chance that your competitors will also use it. Try to look for keywords with relatively low competition. When you think about the keywords you want to include in your campaign, you need to take relevance and competition into account.

Going once going Twice…

The ultimate goal of Google Ads is of course to generate more website visitors and thus more conversions. That's why you want your ad to appear at the top or right of the search engine results. Which advertisement is ultimately shown depends on Google's online auction system. In your Google account you can indicate the maximum amount you want to spend on one click. These costs are also called the CPC (cost per click). You then only pay when someone clicks on your ad.

Google determines in which position an ad is shown based on various elements. When someone enters a search query somewhere, Google looks for all advertisements that match this search query. Google then looks at the offer you have made, the quality and relevance, among other things. This does not mean that you have to have the highest bid. Sometimes advertisements with a lower bid than the competition are still shown. This happens when, for example, the keywords are very relevant and the advertisement matches them.

The advertisement

Now that you know how Google Ads works, it's time to put the ad together. One of the most important aspects of Google Ads is to continually test multiple ads in each ad group. This way you can see which advertisement performs best based on click-through rate or conversion. Some tips to optimize your ad are as follows:
• Include keywords in the ad title;
• Include a call-to-action such as 'Order now!';
• Include discounts or offers in the text;
• Be as concrete and relevant as possible.