Overview Of Search Engine Marketing & Online Advertising
When a user begins their search for information about products or services, they typically use a search engine. The words or phrases they use, called a search query, will return set of results that are relevant to the query.
Most search engines provide two types of search results in response to a user’s query, organic search results (also called “natural” or “free” results), and search ads.
Google displays both organic search results and search ads in response to user query and the results are independent of each other. The ranking of an organic search result has no bearing on the ranking of any ad and vice versa. This makes it possible for an advertiser to use search ads to generate traffic, even if their site isn’t presented in the top organic search results.
Organic results are determined by over 200 factors (called an algorithm), while AdWords results are determined by bid price and quality score ( a simpler algorithm).
Introduction To Google AdWords
Google calls their advertising program “AdWords.” On Google.com, AdWords ads appear on the right side of the page and sometimes in a highlighted box above the organic search listings. Organic, or natural, search results appear on the left side of the page. Google doesn’t accept payment to place websites or documents in organic search results.
Google AdWords is much more than text ads on Google.com. With their partner sites in the Google Search and Display networks, advertisers can now reach their desired audience with Google AdWords ads on hundreds of thousands of sites across the web, whether users are actively searching for information or simply reading content on one of their favorite web sites. Today, users see ads while they are on their mobile devices, like smartphones and tablets, while they are watching video content on YouTube, while they are using a favorite app, gmail and more.
Why Use AdWords?
AdWords allows you to show your ads to the people who are likely to be interested in your products and services, while filtering out folks who aren’t. You can track who clicked your ads and you can reach your potential audience as they use multiple devices — desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones.
AdWords offers several benefits, but here are the key ones:
1. Targeted ads
Targeting gives you the ability to show your ads to reach people with specific interests – namely, people who are interested in your products and services – and show them relevant ads.
AdWords offers different ways of targeting, which we’ll go over in more detail later. For now, here’s a look at the choices that you have with online ads that can make your marketing campaigns even more targeted:
Keywords: Words or phrases relevant to your products and service, which are used to show your ads when customers search for those terms or visit relevant websites.
Ad location: Show your ads on search engines, commercial sites, or personal sites.
Age, location, and language: Choose the age, geographic location, and language of your customers.
Days, times, and frequency: Show your ads during certain hours or days of the week, and determine how often your ads appear.
Devices: Your ads can appear on all types of devices, and you can fine-tune which devices your ads appear on and when.
2. Control over costs
AdWords gives you total control over how you spend your money. There’s no minimum and you can choose how much you spend per day, per month, and per ad. You’ll only pay when someone clicks your ad.
3. Measured your success
AdWords tracks your ad. You’ll know the number of impression and the number of clicks (or phone calls or downloads) your ad receives. You can even incorporate Google Analytics and track your entire sales funnel.
By knowing which ads get clicks and which ones don’t, you’ll also quickly see where to invest in your campaign. That, in turn, can boost the return on your investment (ROI).
You can get other valuable data, including how much it costs you, on average, for advertising that leads to your customers’ online purchases or phone calls. And you can also use analytical tools to learn about your customer’s shopping habits – how long, for instance, they tend to research your product before they buy.
4. Campaign management
AdWords also offers you tools to easily manage and monitor accounts. You can manage your account online through the AdWords Dashboard or you can download the free AdWords Editor to manage your account offline.
The AdWords Editor is a desktop application that allows you to quickly and conveniently manage, edit, and view multiple accounts at the same time, copy or move items between ad groups and campaigns, and undo and redo multiple changes while editing campaigns offline. Once you’ve finished your edits, simply upload the changes to your account for them to take effect.