How Google Ads Can Help Your Business

Google is everywhere. The search giant’s services are so ubiquitous, in fact, that it can be easy to take them for granted – or even overlook them! We all click on Google ads multiple times a week, but you should be seriously considering using them for your business, too. Don’t shrug and assume they’re not for you – look again at the opportunities they offer.

Businesses of all sizes, in fact, can benefit from a Google ad campaign. They are not just for big corporations or online titans – in fact, they can seriously level the playing field for smaller businesses, too. All that’s required is a little nous, and an understanding of what your target audience might be searching for. From there, with the right keyphrases and a carefully selected budget, small businesses, too, can have big impacts with Google ads.

But what are those impacts? Let us try to persuade you that you should look again at Google ads by going through some of their most positive impacts.

1. Quicker Than SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the laborious task of tinkering with every element of your site to ensure Google – and other search engines – list it highly for your chosen keyphrases. Doing this is a must – there are no short-cuts and no excuses not. Organic search results are the best search results. 

Good SEO takes time, though. And this is where Google ads can come in. While you optimise and perfect your website, pay-per-click Google ads can take the strain whil your site becomes top-ranking. Not only can paying for your search listing get you seen more quickly – your campaign data can help inform your SEO efforts, too (which keyphrases are most popular, where are your audiences coming from?). 

SEO is a must long-term; but PPC can get you places in the shorter term.

2. Scalability

Are you a put-your-toe-in-the-water person rather than a dive-right-in person? Good news: Google ads has you covered. PPC campaigns are hugely scalable – meaning you can start as small as you like, and only invest further when you know what works. Of course, you can also change direction once you scale up, or even scale back again. Google ads are eminently customisable, putting you in the driving seat.

Google ads work by ‘bidding’ on a particular phrase. Some phrases are cheaper than others – but those might be exactly the right ones for your business. The brilliance of PPC is how super-targeted a campaign can be, then. You don’t need to invest hugely in a campaign that covers ever base: choose one keyword, pay a little and see what happens; invest in a more competitive phrase or even expand to a several more; and so on. Especially for small businesses, this low barrier to entry ensures that Google ads can be adopted very straightforwardly, and with a minimum of risk – but instantly scaled when the results justify that.

3. Generate Data

Data has a value all of its own. In addition to all the traffic Google ads can send to your site – where hopefully it will be converted to business. Any PPC campaign will provide you with invaluable information on who is clicking on what. That means you can learn more about your audiences, what they’re searching for – and which phrases most often lead to conversions.

The Google Ads dashboard is a rich resource of metrics. This wealth of measurements can be mined for gold, and hugely increase your market intelligence. This can improve not just your next Ad campaign by improving your choice of phrases; it can improve your SEO, web design and other marketing strategies, too. Test your copy, try out different phrases, compare the success rate of different landing pages: running a campaign in Google Ads is a way of learning as well as earning.

4. Improve – and Protect – Brand Awareness

Your brand belongs to you – but you need to claim it. Google Ads are an open market – and that means that anyone can big for any word … including your brand name. If you’re not bidding for your brand on Google Ads, a competitor could be – and clients searching for your business may well be clicking on another’s as a result. Worse, because of where Google Ads are placed on a search results page, a competitor bidding for your brand name may appear above your site even if you are listed number one organically.

The solution? Bid for your brand. This is true not just for established businesses protecting their client bases, either: new businesses can use Google Ads to increase awareness of their emergent brand. How? Bid for phrases in your area, but include your new brand in the Ads copy. Users will begin to associate this new business with the phrases they use perhaps currently to search for others. This makes Google Ads a great way to present a business to people who don’t yet know they need you – as well as retaining an audience that already does.

5. Level the Playing Field

So a Google Ads campaign can help you find new audiences and keep your existing customers. But to do this you don’t necessarily have to out-spend your competitors: Google Ads are smarter than that. Perhaps in the old days it would be the company that bought the most billboards who’d come out on top; but today digital marketers can be more savvy – and David can still beat Goliath.

Small businesses can get ahead by really working on their ads. Google in fact rewards companies that make good ones, displaying not just the most valuable to them, but the ones they think will be most valuable to their users. From fantastic copy to the newer options open to modern Google Ads, including images and so on, a well-tooled ad will receive eyeballs – and can leap over a behemoth whose ads are uninspiring but simply well-funded. 

From appearing right at the top of search results to getting in early before your site is fully optimised; and from targeting potential customers already searching for what you do to enabling committed customers to find you easily, Google Ads serve a lot of functions. They do so with no minimum (and no maximum spend). With a focus on relevancy and quality which can help small businesses compete.

In other words, using them simply makes sense. All the data they provide can be as useful and valuable to a business as they sales they provide. Even for small businesses, Google Ads can provide quick, competitive and flexible routes to pre-existing markets. Can Google Ads can help your business? 100% yes!

Learn more about Google Ads here!

Want to find out more about how to drive customers to your website? Please get in touch. We have a marketing agency in Warwickshire and Manchester and focus on digital marketing, design, apps and websites. We’d love to chat!