What if we told you there was a way to Market your Small Business Online quickly, effectively and with minimal fuss? You’d probably be pretty interested, wouldn’t you? And for good reason too. Online competition is becoming increasingly fierce, so as a Small Business Owner it’s imperative that you utilise the very best Marketing strategies to stay ahead of your competitors.
With more than 2 billion active users each month performing upwards of 40,000 searches per second, Google is still one of the best ways for a Business, of any size, to promote itself to potential customers Online. And with the top three positions on the search results page together accumulating almost 50% of clicks, trust us, this is where you want your Small Business Website to be.
Luckily, there is a way to get there. And that’s where Google AdWords, or Pay-per-Click (PPC) as it’s otherwise known, comes in. While it does require time and monetary investment, this incredibly powerful Digital Marketing tool has completely transformed hundreds of thousands of Businesses worldwide.
So if you’re looking to mix up your Digital Marketing game, then keep reading, because we’re about to delve into how Google AdWords can completely revolutionise your Online success.
What is Google AdWords
But before we get too far into things, let’s take a quick look at what Google AdWords is and how it works.
Essentially, Google AdWords is an Online advertising service developed by Google, where advertisers pay to display brief advertising copy, product listings, and video content within the Google ad network to Web Users. You’ve probably seen these ads yourself before when you type a search query into Google. They appear at the top of the Search Results Page with a little green “Ad” button underneath to show users that it’s paid advertising content. Sometimes these ads will be accompanied by what are known as “ad extensions”, which could display contact details, location information, links to specific Site pages and additional details about products.
To get one of these lucrative ad positions, advertisers bid on Keywords related to their Business, products and industry in order for their clickable ads to appear in Google's search results. But it doesn’t just come down to the Keyword auction. There are many there factors that contribute to an advertiser’s position, such as their quality score, bounce rate and landing page.
So now that you’re up to speed, let’s take a closer look at just how Google AdWords can boost your customers, leads and sales!
AdWords is Scalable
When creating a sturdy and long-lasting Marketing Strategy for your Small Business, scalability should be something you keep at the forefront of your mind. You don’t want to get stuck with a system that forces you to drastically increase your effort when your leads increase, because at some point you’ll run out of steam.
Google AdWords has solved this problem for Online Advertisers, as it is an incredibly scalable strategy that requires minimal tweaking to increase results. If you create a Google AdWords Campaign that is converting at a profitable rate, there’s no reason to arbitrarily cap spend on that Campaign. You can increase your budget on that well-performing ad and your leads and profits will increase accordingly. This makes AdWords highly effective for Small Businesses that need a lot of leads but are short on time and employees.
AdWords is Fast
While Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is indeed a great tool for every Small Business Owner to have in their Digital Marketing tool belt, it can take months to see results, which isn’t ideal for a new Business wanting to see results fast.
Instead, Google AdWords is great for Businesses just starting out Online, because you don’t have to wait around so long to see results. While working on your site’s SEO, you can put resources into an AdWords Campaign and start getting impressions and clicks immediately.
AdWords is Highly Targeted
As an Online advertiser, sophisticated targeting tools are essential to maximizing your Return on Investment, with search marketing. Google AdWords’ targeting capabilities are quite sophisticated and provide you with various ways in which to fine-tune your campaign, so you’re reaching the people who matter the most to your Business – those who are most likely to buy form you. These targeting options include:
- Location Targeting
Google AdWords allows you to target specific geographic locations. For each ad campaign, you can select locations where your ad can be shown. You can choose locations such as entire countries, areas within a country, cities, territories, or even a radius around a location.
This is a great option for Small Business that may only service one particular area, or only ship to certain countries.
- Mobile Targeting
Enhanced Campaigns allows advertisers to target Mobile device users, which is especially important with the dramatic increase of mobile consumption and Mobile search queries each year.
- Language Targeting
AdWords has over 40 language options for campaign targeting.
- Time Targeting
AdWords allows advertisers to select specific hours during the day for optimal targeting. This means that if you know a large proportion of your target audience are Online between the hours of 5pm and 11pm, you can show your ads more frequently during this period, thus increasing your chances of clicks and conversions.
By investing a little time into making your Campaigns targeted and specific, you’ll avoid wasting your precious budget on advertising to people who aren’t interested in your products.
AdWords Traffic Typically Has Higher Conversion Rates
Now don’t get us wrong, there is always a place for Organic Traffic and the Marketing Tools that promote this, but statistics do suggest that Google AdWords Ads does have higher conversion rates compared to those of SEO.
Obviously it depends on the industry you’re in and the quality of your Campaigns, but on average paid search traffic converts up to 2 times more than organic traffic. This is likely due to the fact that paid search traffic is more targeted and qualified, as a result of the targeting options we talked about above, such as Location and Mobile Targeting.
AdWords Compliments Many Other Marketing Channels
AdWords is a great Marketing Tool in the way that it is complementary to your other marketing efforts, including Remarketing and SEO.
While your start building your SEO Campaigns, which take time and patience before they start to drive organic traffic to your Site, you can have your AdWords ads up and running, seeing you get a return straight away!
AdWords also allows you to utilise Remarketing, which is is an especially powerful way to use AdWords to target people who have shown an interest in your Business. With AdWords Remarketing, you can track past visitors to your Website, social media, blog, etc., with a cookie. Your display ads will then “follow” them around the Internet, so your Brand stays top of mind. This is also great for enhancing your Brand awareness!
There are so many other ways that Google AdWords can transform your Businesses success, such as its measurable results, cost-effectiveness and Remarketing options, but we don’t have the space to go into all of those here!
What you do need to understand is that Google AdWords works. It’s fast, effective, can be made specifically for your audience and works alongside so many other strategies. If you’re looking for the one thing that will completely revolutionise your Online Business Success, this is it.