How to drive traffic to your website through paid advertising. Some simple tips and guidlelines.
Paid Advertisement – Google Ads
In simple terms, you pay to drive traffic to your website. It is generally associated with search engines such as Google, however, in recent times, social media giants have also jumped on the bandwagon. Platforms such as Facebook and Instagram offer a similar paid digital advertising service.
The idea of paid advertising is that you generally are up and running and in front of your audience almost immediately, rather than waiting for months to appear organically through your SEO.
I will go through a few simple steps of Google Ads (formerly known as Google Adwords) because this is generally the platform I have had the most experience in. I still believe that Google Ads is one of the most powerful search engine marketing tools. When people search for something on Google, it means they are actively looking for something, and if you are there, you are where your customer is, offering them precisely what they’re looking for. It is that simple.
Let’s look at some important definitions and try to simplify them as much as we can. It will give you basic knowledge of one of the most important parts of your business.
Pay Per Click (PPC)
One of the most popular forms of pay per click advertising is with search engines (such as Google or Bing). Under this scenario, the advertiser pays a fee for every time their ad is clicked. Essentially you are paying the search engine to have your website appear on their search result page and you will only pay them a fee if a visitor clicks on your ad.
Keywords
Keywords are words or phrases that a user will search for on google and if you have selected them as part of your campaign, then the user will see your ad. Your business will pay google to have your website seen at the top of search results based on your keywords.
For example, you run a pizza place. You also sell pasta.
Your target keywords: pizza, pizza delivery, Margherita pizza, pepperoni pizza.
User one jumps onto google and searches for “margherita pizza.”
User two jumps onto google and searches for “carbonara”
User two will not see your ad if you have not targeted the keyword “carbonara”
Impressions
Each time your ad is shown on a search result, regardless if it was clicked on or not, this is an impression.
Clicks
This is the number of people who saw your ad and clicked on it and went inside your website.
Click-Through Rate (CTR)
Your click-through rate is your impressions divided by your clicks. In simple terms, if you had 200 impressions (people that saw your ad) and 20 Clicks (people who clicked on your ad) – then your click-through rate is 10% (A high click-through rate means that your ads and keywords are better than others who have a low click-through rate). You can use my basic percentage calculator to work out your CTR.
Cost Per Click (CPC)
Your (CPC) is basic. If you paid $20 for 20 clicks then your Cost Per Click is $1.00. This is a specific cost to a specific click.
Conversions
Tracking conversions is important. People instantly think that a conversion is the sale that occurs after a user has clicked on your ad. Yes, it is, but it’s not only that. A conversion is also a phone order from someone that clicked on your ad or a sale in your retail shop from someone finding your address on your website or it can also be a subscription to your mailing list. You are still converting from your ads.
Your Conversion RATE is calculated as follows:
Clicks divided by Number of Conversions.
So, if you had 200 clicks and 20 conversions, your conversion rate is 10%.
You can use my basic percentage calculator to work out your conversion rates.
Your Cost Per Conversion (Avg CPC) is calculated as follows:
‘Click Cost’ divided by the ‘number of conversions.’
So, if your 200 clicks cost you $1.00 each that’s a total of $200.
If you converted 20 of those clicks, then your cost per conversion is $10.00.
Quality Score
The concept here is very simple. Google will reward you if you are relevant to the user. Google really wants users to keep coming back to their platform, so it will not reward people who have terrible and irrelevant ads even if they are paying more.
Google will give you a quality score based on how relevant your ads are, how good the user experience is on your website, your keywords and your landing page. Your quality score will be 1-10 (with ten the highest and the best)
Some of the things that Google look for when giving a quality score are:
Relevancy – Click-through rate – your landing pages and how user friendly they are. They are looking to see how long the user spends on your site as this determines how relevant you are. People who leave immediately create what’s known as a ‘bounce rate’. If this is high, Google will take this into consideration and your quality score will take a hit.
What you will pay
Yes, Google Ads is a bidding process where you enter your highest bid to appear in the top search results but not everyone pays the same. Google will determine what you are going to pay based on all those things we just spoke about. Your Quality Score, your click-through rate and how well your rank.
Your quality score and rank, together with your bid, will get compared to your competitors, and Google will then determine what you will pay. You could pay less for a higher position if you do things right and have a high-quality score.
Conclusion
It is great to be able to understand the basics of paid advertisement. Once you grasp how it works, you can apply this knowledge across a few platforms, not only Google. If you feel this to be too overwhelming or time-consuming, though, there are experts who can assist. They generally set up your AdWords campaigns and make a monthly commission on your AdWords spend.
Be mindful to keep your costs under control. Ensure to be on top of your budget and set limits. Google Ads Spend can go out of control very quickly. You must be able to measure your results as it can become challenging to know how much you are paying and if it is worth it. Ensure that if your item sells for $50, it doesn’t cost you $100 on advertising costs. You must put a number to YOUR business and against your profits. Have a tailored made strategy for your own business. No two companies are alike, nor should their google campaign strategy be either. You may have small profit margins that cannot take the expense of these ad campaigns.
In saying all this, however, Google ads can be a massive opportunity if done well.
Google Ads should not be your only selling platform. When selling online, you should ensure you can generate as many sales as possible and open up other selling platforms. You never want to have all your eggs in one basket. In fact, when you initially create your business plan, risk management should ideally be a part of it. Knowing your risks will help you assess them and take action to mitigate them or reduce them.
Good strategic management is one of the most important elements of running a successful business. Without strategies, in place and without any planning your business won’t be able to succeed. In fact, having no strategies is the second reason why businesses fail. Don’t become one of those statistics.
By following these simple guidelines that have so much practical experience, you can really make your business successful as I did.
