Google Search is the product that the majority of anyone you need to reach is using to find information, and using Google Ads helps you rank at the very top of any search results on Google. This means that when a potential customer, client or donor searches for something on Google, a link to your website will be at the top of a search result relevant to your goals. When your website may rank on page 2 or page 20 on Google normally, you can then skyrocket to the first result.

According to Hubspot, “it’s estimated Google processes approximately 63,000 search queries every second, translating to 5.6 billion searches per day and approximately 2 trillion global searches per year. The average person conducts between three and four searches each day.” People use Google when they’re researching things to buy or what services may be available nearby, and Google Ads puts your website at the top of those searches.

Google lets you define exactly who to reach, defined by location and keywords. You can find people searching “caterer near me” if you own a catering business, "software engineer jobs” if you are hiring, or “birthday gift ideas” if you sell a giftable product or run an e-commerce store. Think of what keywords describe your business, and only pay when someone clicks through to your website.

Keywords are simply words that describe what your business does or what your goals are. If you were a lawyer, you would potentially put, “lawyers near me,” “patent attorney,” or “intellectual property attorney” as your keywords and add to the list or subtract as you see how those keywords perform. With those keywords, your website would show up whenever someone in your defined location searches those phrases, and Google will report back to you how much those keywords cost per click on average, helping you determine what keywords you want to advertise on.

Pay per click advertising on Google is a much easier and cheaper marketing strategy than social media ads and can be much quicker to see results from than organic strategies like SEO. Pay per click advertising with Google Ads lets you find the exact people who are searching for topics relevant to your goals, in the locations that you operate in, at the budget that you set, and that’s it. Once you find your keywords, you can sit back and adjust your advertising budget as results come in.

If you have a specific date in mind where you’d want to see results from a Google Ad campaign, it would benefit you to start it a few days beforehand. Google Ads take a while to ramp up, and you won’t see updates on ad results for a few days after the campaign starts. Don’t think that your ad isn’t running, as Google shows your ad to a very limited group of people, monitors the feedback, extrapolates, then shows the ad to another group of people informed by the data. Google is figuring out what your ad means and who to show it to. A campaign can take months to really find exactly who to show your ads to. When you start seeing better performance, that means Google may have found a better audience, and you should increase spend.

Google Ads are cheaper than social media ads because they’re pay-per-click. Social media ads generally mean that you’re paying to put your ad in the feeds of social media users, hoping they’ll click, giving you a cost-per-click. The difference is, Google charges you when someone clicks through to your website, and the average Facebook ad is charging you just to show an ad to a targeted group of people.

Google Ads are perfect for businesses that sell online, or businesses that need to collect leads of a specific type in a specific location. They’re even better because you only have to pay when someone clicks. If the value of a new customer to your business is a high monetary value, like if you’re a lawyer or car dealership, spending a little bit of money on Google Ads could potentially mean tens of thousands of dollars in profit from one single click. Google Ads are a great maitenence level marketing strategy, as you can set your budget and keep it running for as long as you see results. What keywords describe your business?