How to Advertise on Google with Google Adwords
Joseph Russell
Published Mar 29, 2026
Did you know you can get ranked number 1 on Google for free using Google My Business (previously Google Local Business Center) and Google Maps?
Google My Business helps your advertisements show up in Google searches that are made in close proximity to your business which will help you get more traffic, leads and sales.
Let’s use Just Creative (previously Just Creative Design) as an example; if someone who lives around Newcastle (where I freelance from) searches for ‘graphic designer newcastle’ my business comes up first in the local search results of which you can see in the image above and that position is 100% free through the use Google My Business.
In the image below you can see the free local google listing again but this time you can also see my paid advertising at the top (highlighted in yellow) which I have paid for through Google Adwords. I use Google Adwords to ensure that I get clicked first no matter what.
Anyway, keep reading to find out how to get to number 1 on Google for free.
What You Need To Get Free Advertising On Google
Before you jump in and get your free advertising on Google you will need to have these things:
- An account with Google.
- The phone number(s), addresses and any other contact information you want to advertise.
- An address to verify your address (Google mails a postcard)
- Optional: A logo and/or image(s) of your business and products
How To Get Free Advertising On Google
- Go to and click Start Now.
- Search for your business to verify that it is not already listed. If you do not find your business, continue entering your info.
- Follow the simple steps provided by Google. You will be asked to verify your business by getting a code in your mailbox.
Some business owners may be able to verify through other methods like phone call, text, email, or Google Search Console. If you see any of these options, follow the directions on the page to verify your business, and skip the instructions in this guide. - Verify your business. You will have 30 days to verify. In the mean time, read their FAQ.
- Well there we have it, you can now get free advertising on Google. You can edit your listing by going back to the Google My Business page.
Further Tips
- You can add photos, additional info and even create your own business website right within Google.
- You can learn about Search Engine Optimisation here.
- You may also want to swap to Gmail for your email, here is 10 reasons why to swap to Gmail.
Well there you have it, you can now get free advertising on Google. Good luck!
Get in front of customers when they’re searching for businesses like yours on Google Search and Maps. Only pay for results, like clicks to your website or calls to your business.
Call to get set up by a Google Ads specialist
Mon–Fri, 9:00am–6:00pm IST
online bakery delivery
Kabir’s Online Bakery Delivery
Local bakery, serving up fresh cakes and delicious desserts to your doorstep.
Show up when people search for what you offer
Google is where people search for what to do, where to go and what to buy. Your ad can appear on Google at the very moment someone is looking for products or services like yours.
Whether they’re on desktop or mobile, a well-timed ad can turn people into valuable customers.
Get the results that matter to you
Drive website visits
Grow online sales, bookings or mailing list signups with online ads that direct people to your website.
Get more phone calls
Increase customer calls with ads that feature your phone number and a click-to-call button.
Increase shop visits
Get more customers in the door with business ads that help people find your company on the map.
Set a budget that works for your business
Google Ads can work for almost any advertising budget. Set a monthly budget cap, and never go over it. Plus, you can pause or adjust your spend anytime.
Advertising on Google is one of the best decisions you can make to expand your reach, find new customers, and grow your business. Google Ads (formerly known as Google AdWords) is the world’s largest and most widely used online advertising platform, and by advertising on Google, your business can reach a potential audience of millions.
Let us help you get started with this beginner’s guide to advertising on Google.
How Advertising on Google Works
Google Ads functions as an auction, but unlike a regular auction, it’s not just your bid that matters – the auction takes the quality and relevance of your ad campaigns into account. This means that the playing field is level for everybody, not only those advertisers with the deepest pockets.
The Google Ads auction is centered around the concept of keywords. Advertisers identify keywords that are relevant to their business – and that searchers are likely to use when trying to find something – and bid on them, stating how much they are willing to pay each time a Google user clicks on their ad. This is where the term “pay-per-click advertising” comes from.
The ad auction takes place every single time a searcher enters a keyword into Google, meaning that every single search for keywords you’re bidding on represents an opportunity for your ads to be shown to prospective new customers. And since those prospects are actively looking for what you’re selling, you’ll be showing up at the exact right moment. This is what makes advertising on Google so powerful, and one of the best ways to grow your business.
How to Advertise on Google
Advertising on Google requires a Google Ads account, which is free to create. Once you’ve opened your account, it’s time to figure out how to use Google Ads to grow your business!
The following is a ten-step process for advertising on Google:
- Establish your account goals
- Determine your audience
- Conduct keyword research
- Set budgets and bids
- Build your optimal account structure
- Write high-performing ads
- Create effective landing pages
- Implement conversion tracking
- Grow your remarketing lists
- Make optimization a habit
We’ll provide more tips on how to optimize your Google advertising below.
Optimal Google Ads Account Structure
The first step is to consider your account structure. Although there are many ways to structure an AdWords account, such as mirroring the structure of your website or by product categorization, the most effective and successful accounts all share the same qualities when it comes to organizational hierarchy. The following figure shows an optimal Google Ads account structure:
The account itself is the topmost level. Within each account are campaigns. Some advertisers only run a single campaign at any given time, whereas others run numerous campaigns simultaneously. Each campaign houses various ad groups, each of which, in turn, contain unique keywords, ad text, and accompanying landing pages.
Campaigns are often organized by theme, such as a holiday promotion or back-to-school sale. Within each campaign, ad groups are often organized by products or services, such as Hanukah merchandise or school stationery. Finally, individual products, such as menorahs or notebooks, have their own targeted keywords, unique ad copy, and relevant accompanying landing pages.
The structure of your Google Ads account may not reflect this hierarchy precisely, but organizing your account in this manner will allow you to keep things organized and tightly themed from the outset, factors that can have significant influence on PPC metrics such as Quality Score.
Check out this guide full of best practices & tips to getting started with Google Ads.
Advertise on Google with WordStream
Aside from the technical aspects of setting up and running a PPC campaign using Google AdWords, many advertisers struggle with the time commitment necessary to achieve success with paid search. That’s why WordStream’s software and free tools have proven invaluable to thousands of businesses advertising on Google.
The Google Ads Performance Grader: A Completely Free Audit of Your Google Account
To maximize the impact of your Google advertising campaigns, you need to know what measures are working and where improvements can be made – and WordStream’s AdWords Performance Grader can help you do exactly that.
The AdWords Performance Grader is the most comprehensive, fully featured free tool of its kind. In 60 seconds or less, the AdWords Performance Grader performs a detailed and thorough audit of your AdWords account, identifying areas in which improvements can be made as well as highlighting successful areas of your account and how they compare to competitive benchmarks for your industry.
WordStream Advisor: The Only Online Advertising Platform You Need
Constant analysis, optimization, and attention are required to make advertising on Google as profitable as possible. However, for many small businesses and companies with limited resources, managing a paid search campaign on Google Ads can be a full-time job. That’s why we developed WordStream Advisor.
Our proprietary 20-Minute Work Week system allows you to effortlessly identify areas in which action can be taken to improve results and campaign performance immediately. WordStream Advisor allows you to manage your Google Ads, Bing Ads, and Facebook advertising campaigns from one responsive, centralized dashboard, eliminating the need to track various campaigns through different interfaces – simply log into WordStream Advisor and take control of your online advertising efforts from one place.
WordStream Advisor customizes its recommendations based on your current campaigns, account history, and other elements individualized to your AdWords account. You will receive action items with specific, actionable recommendations and prescriptive workflows allowing you to make changes to your account in mere minutes that will have an immediate and powerful impact on your account performance. You can track changes over time, and see improvements in your account with our intuitive visual reports.
Try WordStream Advisor today with a free, no-obligation trial and see how we can help you succeed with advertising on Google.
So, you are thinking of using Google Ads (previously Google Adwords) to advertise your marijuana or cannabis business online. If this is the case, I have some good news and some bad news for you. I’ll give you the bad first.
The bad thing is that technically, it’s against Google’s TOS to advertise marijuana or marijuana-related businesses on Google.
The good news is that it is still possible to advertise on Google Ads with the right methods.
What are Google Ads (Adwords)?
Google Ads are Google’s auction-based advertising system that allows you to display ads for common search keywords in Google. You can tell Google Ads results by the little green ad label next to a listing.
Here is an example of some Google Ads:
They show before organic results and sometimes on the right side depending on which device you are searching on.
How Does Google Adwords Work?
Google Ads were on an auction-based system. You bid a set amount on where you want to show up among competitors (if any). This bid is set on a cost per click basis… that means you are willing to pay $x amount per click to your website.
Let’s say the highest cost per click (CPC) for the keywords ‘marijuana SEO’ is $1.00. If we wanted to show up in the first position, then we would need to set a minimum bid of $1.01. Then, if someone clicks on the ad, we would get charged $1.01.
But Google also looks at a number of other factors like the click-through-rate of the ad, the landing page experience, and the ad text relevance. If your ad has a good click-through-rate for certain keywords, your ad will show more with a reduced cost per click because Google thinks its a good ad and is providing a good experience to their users.
Here is a simple graphical explanation of how it works, from Wordstream:
There are many other factors and inner workings of the Google Ads system but this is basically how it works. But how much does it cost to advertise on Google Adwords?
Well, it can range but if you have keywords with a lot of competition, you can pay a hefty price per click.
How Much Do Google Ads Cost?
To show ads on Google, you will pay anywhere between $0.01 and upwards of $100 per click.
Depending on the competition, niche, service, and cost of the product, the CPC can vary widely. In the marijuana and Cannabis niche, it’s pretty low since there is basically no competition because it’s again the Google TOS to advertise for marijuana.
In our experience, we have seen an average CPC of $1.50 but in some ancillary businesses like CPAs and Insurance providers, we have seen upwards of $10 per click.
Marijuana & Google Ads TOS
Cannabis and Marijuana fall into Google’s advertising policy, Dangerous products or services. Which states that recreational drugs are not allowed to be advertised for on Google Search or Display. Here are Google’s exact words:
This doesn’t necessarily reference any ancillary businesses that provide services like cannabis accountants, marijuana insurance or even marijuana marketing but if you are to try and create ads, it’s likely they will get disapproved.
But why is this? There are plenty of other marijuana businesses out there advertising on Google:
Well, its somewhat of a process, but it is possible to run ads in Google for marijuana businesses. We do it for a number of clients and are seeing some good success.
Cannabis & Approved Google Ads
Getting Google to approve your cannabis or marijuana ads can be tricky. Their algorithm is very good at finding ads related to recreational drugs and taking them down. But we have figured out this algorithm and have some great ways to advertise for marijuana dispensaries, delivery, doctors, insurance providers, P.O.S. providers and more.
Ad Text & Headlines
Getting your cannabis ad to be approved on Google Ads will require picking the right ad text and headlines. If you use certain keywords in your ad text or headlines you may get flagged instantly. This means using keywords like:
- weed
- marijuana
- cannabis
- drugs
- bong
You have to be somewhat careful what you choose as the algorithm has certain words that it automatically finds and disapproves your ad.
Choosing Keywords
As with the ad headline and text, you will want to be careful when choosing the right keywords to advertise for on Google. Using the above keywords may get your ad or keyword flagged and inactivated. A good tip is to use keyword modifiers instead of basic keywords. This means using keywords like:
Disapproved URLs
If your ads get disapproved to often, then the Google Ads algorithm will ‘flag’ the URL or domain that you are using to send the traffic to. This means that when you try to create another ad with that URL, they will automatically ban it. This happens often when you are advertising in this space because technically, it’s against their TOS.
When this happens, you will either need to create a new domain or set up a landing page to redirect the traffic. We do this often for our clients and charge 20% of your monthly ad spend to keep the Ads going.
Aged Accounts
Google treats aged accounts with more leniency than if you create a brand new account. If you have access to an older account, you may have more luck getting approved on Google for advertising. If you have a new account that gets disapproved too much, they will simply suspend the account, but if you have an aged account they will just disapprove your ad and URL.
Optimizing Marijuana Ads
Now that you have ads running, its time to optimize, optimize, optimize.
Why run ads if you can’t get a good ROI on your investment?
Installing Google Analytics and Adwords Conversion tracking will help you find the best keywords and the best performing ads. Once these are installed and set up, you can track how much you spent and how much you made through each keyword and ad.
This type of information is vital to getting a good return on your ad spend for your marijuana company. If you are spending a lot, but not getting results it could be due to a bad landing page, low ad rank or bad keywords.
Google Ads for Marijuana Businesses
If you run an online dispensary, ancillary business, grow-op or even manufacturing, we can help you get approved with Google Ads. We have been advertising on Google for over 10 years and can help you generate more leads and sales with Marijuana PPC advertising.
Whether you can’t get approved, don’t have the time or just want highly experienced professionals to manage your ads, contact us today.
How useful was this post?
Click on a star to rate it!
Average rating / 5. Vote count:
No votes so far! Be the first to rate this post.
Free SEO Website Analysis
Enter your URL below to get a free SEO analysis of your dispensary, CBD, hemp or ancillary website.
In the digital age, many, if not most, readers begin book searches on the Internet. And while tuned-in bibliophiles know about book-specific sites like Goodreads, many others begin their searches at what is, for all intents and purposes, the central command of Internet discovery: Google.
[Note: this article was originally published in March 2015 and was updated on Dec. 1, 2016.]
Fortunately, Google—like Goodreads and other popular book websites—offers indie authors a means of catching readers at this key moment of discovery. With Google AdWords, the company’s primary advertising platform, self-published authors can publish text ads that will appear on search results pages, targeting those ads to the users who will find them most relevant. And, since Google AdWords works according to a pay-per-click—or PPC—model, users are only charged for each click their ads receive.
Indie author and blogger Rachel Thompson used Google AdWords to advertise all four of her humor books, and notes that the search giant’s audience is much larger than those of author platforms. “AdWords got me on Amazon lists with much higher rankings.”
And while authors of all stripes have made use of AdWords, book marketing veteran Dana Lynn Smith notes individual results will vary, often across genre lines.
“I think Google pay-per-click ads are best suited to how-to books, especially those in specialized niches,” she says. “Because the competition is so high on Google, the pay-per-click rate tends to be pretty high, so it works best for higher priced books or for authors who have other higher priced products to sell, in addition to their books.”
Google offers two iterations of its program: the original AdWords platform and an express version. The express option takes you through all the same steps as the original, but in a slightly different order intended to make the process quicker. On both platforms, building an ad is a five-step process.
In the first step, indie authors will specify how much they’d like to spend. Like other advertising services, such as those operated by Goodreads or Facebook, Google asks users to set a daily budget. This number will determine the number of clicks and impressions authors are estimated to receive in a given time period. The AdWords website creates estimates as users enter different figures, which makes it easy to experiment and find the amount that works best for a given campaign. In one example, a $10.00 daily budget generated an estimate of 48 clicks and 4,000 impressions per day — without specific date range factored in.
Indie authors should keep in mind that most ad campaigns take place over a number of days—with Google Analytics, users set their own start and end date—and that, as the site says, “actual daily spend may vary.” More information on budget-setting is available on Google’s support site.
Mapping Your Audience
The second step in the process asks users to specify the geographical reach of their ads. Users can choose from an array of options—U.S. only, U.S. and Canada, specific cities and/or regions, etc.—and Google will calculate a new estimate for clicks and impressions for each.
If a book is likely to interest readers living in a specific place, it may be worth limiting the reach of an ad to that region, even if it ends up getting fewer clicks and impressions.
The third step in the process asks users to input keywords related to their ads. This step, according to Thompson, is the most important. “Be sure to do your keyword research,” she says. “Otherwise you’re wasting your time.”
Typically, Google will generate some words based on the website the ad will direct users to. Users can take or leave these, and add other keywords as well. Next to each keyword input, users will see a green meter and a number measuring the popularity of each keyword. Test out different versions of terms (e.g., “YA novel” or “Young Adult novel”) to see which works best. Also keep in mind that certain keywords may change the reach of an ad. As before, users will be able to see these changes in real time as they input and delete keywords.
The next step asks users to determine their bid, which is defined as “the most you’re willing to pay for a click on an ad.” Google recommends having AdWords automatically set bids, and, unless users have a solid understanding of e-marketing and analytics, it’s probably sound advice. If users want to learn the basics of manual bidding, Google’s support site offers an overview.
The last step—writing the ad—is also important. Each ad is composed of a link, a headline, and two lines of text. When writing the ad, keep in mind the context—in this case, an already text-busy search results page. Concise, informative calls-to-action work best. For tips about writing ad copy for AdWords, check out Google’s support site.
Monitoring the Ad
Once users have published their ads, they are able to monitor performance using a dashboard that’s similar to a Google Analytics page for a website. The dashboard shows how many clicks and impressions an ad has received, as well as the average cost-per-click rate.
Thompson was able to garner a large number of clicks and impressions by making a significant financial investment and continuing her campaigns for extended periods of time. She invested around $8,000 in Google AdWords over the course of 18 months, using the service to advertise multiple books (her campaign also included a video component). In the case of one book, Broken Pieces, her campaign generated 19,500 clicks and 602,000 impressions. She says that, as a result of the campaign, the book “significantly improved in sales and rankings.”
About a month ago I wrote about all the benefits of creating a Google AdWords campaign, even if you never turn on your ads. By going through all the steps to create a profitable ad campaign, you’ll determine your ideal customer avatar(s), how to target them, how much you can afford to invest to acquire a new customer, and you’ll craft a more compelling offer with a strong call to action. That all happens before you turn on your ads.
Now let’s talk about all the benefits of turning on those ads and running an ad campaign. In this article, I’m going to walk through 3 key reasons why I think every business should advertise with Google AdWords (no matter what industry you’re in).
Reason #1: Reach Your Ideal Prospect At the Ideal Time
Think about this for a minute. Where else can you advertise exactly when your ideal prospects are looking for your product or service?
Nobody turns on the TV or radio to find your business. Nobody drives around looking for billboards that will provide contact information for a nearby business. And not too many people pick up a magazine or newspaper to find a product or service.
However, when someone goes to Google and types “hardware store,” “hand dryers,” “barefoot running shoes,” or “nyc dentist” then there is no question that person is looking for a business. And not only is that person looking for a business, but she needs a product or service right now!
Google AdWords is hands down the best advertising platform for targeting your ideal prospect at the ideal time. Every day people are literally searching for your product or service, and AdWords gives you the ability to get your business in front of them.
Reason #2: No Minimum Ad Buy
If you’ve tested other forms of advertising like TV, radio, print, and online media buying, then you know there are usually some hefty minimum ad buys. Often a minimum outlay of several thousands of dollars is required to test the advertising campaign with absolutely no guarantee that you’ll get that money back. That’s a tall order for most small businesses.
With Google AdWords, there is no minimum ad buy. You can literally start with $20 to get your feet wet. And then reinvest once you see how the campaign is performing.
Reason #3: Precise Tracking & Reporting
I studied engineering in college so I’m a bit of a data geek by nature. In fact, one of my favorite aspects of Google AdWords is all the tracking and reporting. Not only can you report on your ad impressions, clicks, and costs, but you can also track phone calls, website leads and sales directly in the AdWords interface.
In 2013, Google added offline conversion tracking, so advertisers can now match leads and sales generated in-person or over the phone, to the exact keyword and ad in the AdWords campaign. That means even professional service providers and brick and mortar stores can track leads and sales precisely using Google AdWords.
Need Help With Google AdWords?
Click here to request a quote. If you’re just getting started with Google AdWords, we’ll send you a quote to get your campaign up and running. And if you’re already advertising in Google, we’ll give you a quote to manage your campaigns.
Want More Google AdWords Tips?
Want More Online Marketing Tips?
Join 30,000+ other business owners, marketing managers, and consultants who subscribe to our free “Main Street Marketing Tips” email newsletter.
Работа над контентом требует времени. Сделать его прибыльным можно быстро.
Два миллиона владельцев сайтов выбрали AdSense. Почему?
Сайт – это ваш источник заработка
Миллионы рекламодателей соревнуются за право показать рекламу на вашем сайте. Результат – высокий доход, релевантная реклама и хорошая заполняемость рекламных мест.
Реклама, оптимизированная для мобильных устройств
Размеры рекламных блоков могут меняться автоматически в зависимости от устройства, чтобы повысить вероятность просмотра и клика.
Экономия времени
Просто добавьте на сайт один фрагмент кода. Объявления будут автоматически адаптироваться к вашему сайту, и вам не понадобится менять рекламный код.
Сколько можно заработать с AdSense?
Чтобы оценить возможный доход, выберите, к какой категории относится ваш сайт и откуда приходят посетители.
Местонахождение посетителей сайта и категория контента
Просмотры страниц в месяц
Число загрузок и просмотров страниц вашего сайта посетителями за месяц.
Ваш потенциальный годовой доход*
Расчетное значение – только для справки.
* Мы не гарантируем, что вы в обязательном порядке получите указанную сумму. При вычислении расчетного дохода учитываются указанная вами категория контента и регион. Реальный доход зависит от множества факторов, таких как спрос на рекламные места, местоположения и устройства пользователей, тематика контента, сезон, размер объявлений и курсы валют.
Только самая прибыльная реклама
Увеличьте свой доход, подключившись к самой большой сети интернет-рекламодателей, которые будут конкурировать за ваши рекламные места.
This is a guest contribution from Jignesh Gohel.
Google Adwords has been the most popular tool for online advertising. It is easy enough to set, optimize and start reaping the profits. However, a few know that it can be a highly relevant tool for bloggers too. Many popular blogs are already using Google Adwords to popularize and monetize the sites. While you might already be using other advertisement platforms, Google Adwords opens new ways to rise to the top.
Adwords, as such integrates several different methods for advertising. Trying to get deeper, you can actually be astonished by the largely unnoticed tools that were right there in front of you all this time. Things like advertising on keywords with paid search, advertising on display networks including local news websites or YouTube, etc can be quite fulfilling. Remarketing is another way that Google Adwords leverages the power of paid searches and is considered the highest ROI variant of online advertising. While many bloggers believe that only organic content is the best way to get to the top, paid search too can lend a helping hand. Promoting your content with paid search marketing provides additional opportunity in content marketing. Google Adwords allows bloggers to create ads and generate paid traffic for blog, but with some underlying constraints. Google adwords has pre-defined policy and strict monitoring system which reject or even ban the advertisers who violate their policies. Here are few important policies for bloggers or content marketers.
Google Adwords policies to drive traffic
As said earlier, Google Adwords presents a great platform for blog promotion but also integrates several important restrictive policies
1. Arbitrage
Among the most important Adwords policies, Arbitrage doesn’t allow promotion of blogs that have specifically been designed for the showcasing advertisements. This is line with Google’s favor for unique, original and useful content. Excessive advertising makes your blog unsuitable to advertise with Google Adwords and in some cases; the account can even be suspended. If your blog or websites is primarily focusing on following types of content, it may come under radar of “arbitrage” policy.
- Websites designed primarily for ads
- Websites showcasing interstitial ads (pop up ads)
- Websites with scraped content
- Pre-generated and template content
- Auto-generated and gibberish content
- Websites involving deceptive navigation, indistinguishable content or malicious ads
- Websites integrating ad keywords irrelevant to the core content
2. Bridge Page
Adwords doesn’t support websites/blogs with Bridge Pages. Also referred to as doorway pages, it means landing pages that automatically link up to a completely different site. This is the characteristics with most affiliate websites but aren’t Adwords compliant. As such, these are also the pages that offer the visitor with no/marginal content and are solely meant to redirect traffic.
3. Information Harvesting
Websites/blogs that involve content meant to collect personal information from visitors aren’t supported under Adwords. These would involve websites that offer “free gifts” in exchange for personal information or web pages harvesting sensitive information (bank account details, credit card numbers, etc) over unsecured connections.
If your website is not harvesting information but collect sensitive information from customer, you must install SSL certificate on your website. Google Adwords information harvesting policy strictly recommends that the information mentioned below should transmit over secure processing servers (https):
- Debit and credit card numbers
- Bank/investment account details/numbers
- Wire transfer numbers
- Checking account numbers
- Social security, pension, national identity, driver’s license, health care or Tax ID numbers
If you blog is running on HTTPS, it also had added advantages in Google organic search result. You can easily get FREE SSL certificate from startssl or ssl2buy that can easily installed on your server by following these simple steps.
Tips for bloggers to adhere to Google Adwords policies
The primary goal of Google remains the same – to provide unique, original and representative content to its users. Adwords, as such integrates the same policies to make the experience on the search engine more comfortable for users. Bloggers who plan to be successful with Google Adwords need to:
- Use original and unique content as opposed to scraped ones
- Stop using intestinal and excessive ads
- Stop using blogs solely for the purpose of advertising
- Create campaigns with content relevant keywords and format
- Avoid trying to harvest user/visitor information
- Understand and follow Google adword policies strictly
Creating good content is always half the battle won. It is more important to get it to people who would consider it benefitting. Content promotion strategies integrated into Google Adwords for bloggers can get you ahead of your competitors. As such, experienced content marketers spend as much on promotion as they would on trying to generate the likable, linkable and sharable asset. Google Adwords seems to be a relevant tool that every bloggers should try.
Jignesh Gohel is Founder & CEO of online business consulting agency OLBUZ specializing in eCommerce, products and small business marketing. In his minuscule spare time, Jignesh enjoys nature photography and yoga. You can follow him on Twitter or reach out to him via Linkedin .
Google Ads (formerly known as Google AdWords) are one of the best advertising options online. 3.5 billion Google searches are made every day, and that’s why Google Ads are a great way to get your website in front of the eyes of your consumers.
Did you know that for every $1 spent on Google Ads, the average business owner ends up with $2 in revenue? It’s hard to beat that ROI with other advertising platforms. That’s why if you’re looking for a good option when it comes to ads, you should consider Google Ads.
It’s not difficult to get started with Google Ads, but it can be overwhelming. That’s why I’m going to walk you through 7 steps to set up a campaign even if it’s your first time logging into Google Ads.
Step #1: Go to the Google Ads Website
Go to You will then see, “Get Started Now.” Click on that and sign up for your Google Ads account. You can then click on the button that says, “Create your first campaign.”
Step #2: Choose a Campaign Type and Name
You have options for a campaign type. When you’re just getting started, it’s best to choose “Search Network only.”
Name your campaign. You may want to choose a name that has to do with the product or service you’re advertising.
Step #3: Select Ad Display Location
You have many options when it comes to people’s locations. You can choose a large or small area. For instance, an entire country or just a city. If you want a specific area, you can use latitude-longitude coordinates.
Be sure you know the locations of your ideal customer. If you’re a local business owner, you want to target people around your area. If you’re selling your products and services to people throughout the United States, choose the U.S. For business owners who sell internationally, you may want to set up several campaigns for countries that have the highest sales or where most of your consumers live.
Step #4: Set Your Daily Budget
Until you become a proficient Google Ads user, it’s best to set a low daily budget. This allows you to start slowly, gather data, and then expand what’s working once you are more familiar with your campaigns. Note that Google can and will go slightly over your daily budget. For that reason, it’s important to keep a close eye on your campaigns and adjust your budgets each week to ensure you don’t go over your maximum monthly ad budget.
You must also set up your payment options.
- Manual Payments: You pay before your ad shows.
- Automatic Payments: You link your account to your credit card or bank account and the money is drafted automatically.
- Monthly Invoicing: Google provides credit lines to some business owners who qualify.
Step #5: Add Keywords
This can be tricky, especially for first time advertisers. Your first inclination is likely to add as many keywords as possible that you think are relevant for your business. In fact, this is exactly what Google wants you to do because then you’ll spend more money.
Fight that urge! Instead, focus only on what we call the bullseye keywords. These are the keywords where there is absolutely no doubt that the person searching the keyword is looking for exactly what you offer. There may only be a handful of these bullseye keywords and that’s OK. Don’t add any keywords where there is any doubt the searcher may not be looking for your product or service.
Step #6: Create an Ad
This is when the fun begins. You get to create an ad that will attract your consumers and make them click to go to your website. Prospects are more likely to click on an ad that has the keyword they used in Google’s search bar. So, if you are targeting a specific keyword phrase your consumers use (after doing keyword research), be sure to use that phrase in one of the two headlines.
After the headlines, you can move on to the ad description. Focus on the key benefits of your product or service, describe your special offer if you have one, and end with a strong call to action.
Lastly, we recommend sending people to a landing page that is created to specifically match your ad. By doing this, you can ensure that the information in the ad is reflected on the landing page, which will lead to stronger conversions. People often make the mistake of setting up an ad that advertises a special deal and then sending them to their homepage that never mentions this deal. This only leads to frustration on the part of your prospect. A landing page should be highly targeted for the keyword phrase you used in your ad.
Step #7: Set Up Conversion Tracking
This last step is to set up all the appropriate conversion tracking for your business. Google gives you the following options:
- Webform leads (ex. quote requests)
- E-commerce orders (ex. orders from your online shopping cart)
- Calls from ads (ex. phone calls from the number displayed on your ads)
- Calls from the website (ex. phone calls from the number displayed on your website)
- Imports from sales that occur off of the internet
Make sure you set up all the appropriate conversion tracking options before you turn the ads on. Otherwise, you won’t be able to measure the effectiveness of your ads!
Tracking, Adjusting and Conquering Effective Campaigns
As your ads run, keep an eye on the analytics. You’ll be able to see what is working and what isn’t working. As you pay attention to what your ads do, you’ll be able to get closer to what will give you the best results.
When you’ve figured out which ads your consumers click on the most, you can create similar ones for higher cost-per-click keywords. This will help you increase your ROI.
Now, go ahead and get started. Once you dive in, you’ll start to learn more about what works for your campaigns and that Google Ads can be a great way to advertise your business.
Need Help with Google Ads?
We specialize in creating and managing Google Ads campaigns for small businesses.
Want More Online Marketing Tips?
Join 30,000+ other business owners, marketing managers, and consultants who subscribe to our free “Main Street Marketing Tips” email newsletter.
Free Book Preview Ultimate Guide to Social Media Marketing
I’m a huge proponent of advertising on Google AdWords – indeed, my entire business career has been dedicated to helping companies grow through search engine marketing (SEM). As much as I love AdWords, however, there are a lot of companies for whom AdWords simply will not work. I’ve identified five reasons you shouldn’t advertise on AdWords – reviewing them before you launch a Google campaign could save you some serious money!
1. No one is searching for your product
A search engine is a “database of intentions,” meaning people use search engines to find something specific. They don’t browse search engines like they do a news web site, Facebook or Twitter. If you are selling a new widget, the odds are low that people will be searching for your product on Google.
Imagine being the marketing manager at TiVo when it launched. What words could you buy on Google — “alternative to VCR?” If you have a new product, or simply sell something people don’t search for on Google, you will waste a lot of time building an ad campaign on Google that will never get any clicks. And, as every business owner knows, time is money!
2. Your economics are not as good as your competitors
AdWords determines which ads show up for a given search, based on an auction between advertisers. To overly simplify this, if you bid $1 and ten other advertisers bid $2-$10 each, it is unlikely you will get any clicks on Google.
If your competitors sell the exact same product or service that you do, but make two times the margin on every sale, they will be able to outbid you for plum searches. This means that you will either not get any clicks, or only get clicks on keywords that your competitors don’t want. This generally means AdWords will neither be scalable nor profitable for you.
3. You don’t understand search engine marketing
Search engine marketing is easy to do but hard to do well. If your plan is to check out a how-to book on AdWords from the library and then launch your AdWords campaign, you will likely cost yourself a lot of money.
There are many, many nuances to running an effective AdWords program. If you don’t have someone on your team (or an agency) with years of expertise, you are almost guaranteed to lose a lot of money advertising on Google.
4. You don’t have the right conversion funnel
Having a great product and a terrible web site is like spending millions of dollars on an awesome Super Bowl ad but leaving the doors locked at your store when customers show up. Success with AdWords requires a great conversion funnel. The ad text, the page a consumer lands on and the checkout or form submission experience needs to give that consumer confidence that you are the right merchant for their needs.
5: You don’t have a good offer
If your competitors sell a blue widget for $5 with free shipping and you sell that same product for $10 with $5 shipping, the best AdWords strategy in the world will not be successful. It is simply too easy to click on the next ad and comparison shop. Note: if you have a great brand, you may be able to get away with uncompetitive offers, but even that is a challenge!
Advertising on Google is no longer a secret. The odds are high that your competitors are already running AdWords campaigns. As a result, effectively competing on AdWords means that you need to at least be equal to, and hopefully better than, the competition.
Most of the factors I’ve described are really gut checks to determine how competitive you are vis-à-vis your rivals. Do you have the right margins? The right marketing chops? The right Web site? The right offer? If you can answer yes to all of these questions, not only will you have great success on AdWords, you’ll also have a superb business!
Table of Contents
Have you ever wondered whether it would be worth using Google AdWords to advertise your business?
Well, let’s start by analyzing the reasons why online advertising with Google AdWords might be the best option for your business. Then you can decide for yourself…
1. Because it is faster and easier than SEO
For recently launched websites or SMBs, it may take several months to see results with SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
The competition is overwhelming and large companies have already managed to position their websites in an organic way, taking up all the room.
But AdWords is an excellent alternative to turn your SEO around, and get you onto the first few pages of Google, positioning you above organic results.
With AdWords, you don’t have to wait months or be a web positioning expert to start receiving visitors and new clients immediately. The tool is very intuitive and you can learn how to use it by earning this certification.
But we also have come up with the ultimate guide to creating successful campaigns in Google AdWords, if you’d like to check that one out.
2. Because that’s where your potential customer is
Naturally, you want to be right there when your potential customer is searching for your product or service, right?
You search for things on Google when you begin your buying decision process, and so do they.
AdWords makes sure that your ads are truly relevant to the user, using a contextual keyword technique where they only show your ads to users who are interested in purchasing your product or service and who match the targeting criteria that you have established.
What’s more, it allows you to create mobile versions of your ads, which is important, because mobile devices are already more popular than any other device when it comes to surfing the web.
3. Because you only pay for results
With AdWords, a PPC (pay per click) platform, you only pay for results, which makes the investment more practical and attractive.
So you only pay for clicks (hits) and conversions generated. This allows you to calculate the return on your investment and justify the cost. Sounds pretty good, don’t you think?
You can also track, analyze and optimize campaigns on the platform to ensure you’re always getting the best results.
4. Because you don’t need the budget of a millionaire
There’s no minimum investment with AdWords. You are the one who decides how much to invest. You set a daily budget, and you have the opportunity to adjust it as you go.
5. Because you can follow potential customers with Retargeting
AdWords can keep showing ads to users who visited your website and showed signs of interest but didn’t purchase a product or hire you, using a cookie.
That way, the user will see your ads on all the sites they visit, and your business will be in their top of mind for longer. Sooner or later, they’re likely to make a purchase.
What do you think? Would it make sense to add AdWords to your strategy?
You can boost the benefits AdWords offers you when you use other platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
If this option interests you, Adext AI might make sense as an alternative for you. It’s the first and only audience management as a service that applies Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to digital advertising to find the best audience or demographic group for any ad. It automatically manages budgets across 20 different audiences, on platforms like Google AdWords and Facebook Ads, and optimizes every single ads 480 times a day.
It guarantees its Partner agencies a better cost per conversion (lower cost per sale or cost per lead) for all their accounts and campaigns, or the service will be FREE, and no management or optimization fees are be charged. Additionally, it’s currently providing an average improvement of +83% more conversions than any other human, software or tool could in just 10 days.
So, the only opportunity cost would from not trying it. I f you want to learn more about how exactly Adext AI works read this guide .
If you liked this article you may also like:
