Everything You Need to Know to Start Paid Search

Paid search advertising is one of the most common pay-per-click (PPC) advertising types. It entails brands paying search engines to have their ads appear higher on relevant search engine results pages (SERPs), with the ultimate purpose of driving visitors to their landing pages.

From this article, we intend to discuss what is paid search is and how you can be successful in your next paid search campaign.

▶ What Is Paid Search?

In paid search, the brand will bid on the keywords that people are actively searching for. It refers to all the ads shown in the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) of search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo, where ads will be ranked based on relevance.

In Google ads, ad rank will determine the most desirable placement on the page. It will depend on the quality score, which estimates the quality of your ads, keywords, and landing pages.

Paid search campaigns are used to build brand awareness. For example, some people use a search query without the purpose of buying the product but rather to acquire some information. If you have bid for a particular keyword, your brand can get their attention.

When they are ready to buy a particular product or service, your brand will flash through their minds, making them purchase your product or service.

Paid search will help you gain the particular customer’s trust and familiarity with your product.

▶ Steps to Make Paid Search Successful

If you want to make your brand successful in paid search, it is good to follow these steps to steer your ad in the right direction.

✔ Identify your audience.

It is always better to know exactly who you are targeting. Then, you must have a proper understanding of your target audience’s demographic information and have answers to questions like what they are searching for on the internet and for what types of problems they find solutions.

You can get a clear picture of your target audience based on the information derived from your websites.

Your audiences are another aspect of your Google Ads account structure to consider. You can create audiences based on certain actions taken by users on your website. You can, for example, build segments based on specific page views, how much time a visitor has spent on your site, and other factors.

You can also bid on specific audiences depending on their relevance. Google Ads has hundreds of various audience targeting choices, allowing you to create audiences based on what best meets your business's needs and what is most likely to bring relevant traffic.

✔ Determine your goals.

Now, you have to clearly define what you want them to do after clicking on the advertisement. Thereby, you can decide the type of keywords used that match the user's intent and target those keywords.

It is mandatory that people click through your ad without just seeing it and forgetting it. They should act upon it. Make sure your landing page is relevant to the ad shown. If it is not relevant, people will bounce back.

✔ Choose keywords

Here, you have to think from the customer's perspective and think about how they would conduct research about your product or service and include those search queries in your campaign.

You can use keyword research tools like Semrush, Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, or keywordtool.io to analyze the seed keyword.

When selecting the keywords, it is better not to add too many exact match and phrase match keywords, which leads to fewer clicks but may lead to conversions by attracting a specific audience who intends to buy your product or service.

Once you have selected the keywords, you can create a list or match the keyword type(exact, broad, or phase). Pair responsive search ads with smart bidding and broad-match keywords.

✔ Create compelling ad copy and landing pages.

It is better if you put considerable time into doing your research regarding this to identify customer journeys and align customer goals with yours.

Even if the customer thinks that he found what he wanted by seeing your ads, the landing page should be in a state to meet their requirements. Withal, the landing page should have the ability to retain the customer until he makes a conversion.

✔ Create a message that reflects your brand and the products and services you offer.

When creating the ad text, ensure it appears across all devices. Add various headlines and descriptions. When you have many ads to maintain, use keyword insertion and ad customizers to track the ads.

✔ Analyze the performance of the ad.

There are tools to analyze whether your ad is performing well. Google Analytics is one of the most popular tools used to track data quickly and easily. You can explore the metrics and improve the ads over time.

▶ What is a quality score?

Automated bidding uses it as a bidding tactic. Bidding automation is linked to Google's quality score. It is essentially a measure of how relevant a keyword is to your ad based on previous ad bids.

When Google has gathered enough data, keywords in your Google Ads account are assigned a QS number ranging from one to ten, with ten being the highest.

Your QS is not utilized by Google to rank your advertising; rather, it is intended to serve as a reference to the advertiser in order to help you target the most relevant phrases for your ads.

The scoring system assists you in determining how relevant your keywords are to your advertisements, how likely a user is to click on your ads, and whether your landing pages are appropriate depending on your keywords and ad copy.

As a paid search user, you should be concerned about your QS because it influences the following:

📌 Which advertisements are eligible for inclusion in the ad auction?

📌 What will your average cost per click be?

Ad rank - Ad Rank is determined by your bid amount, auction-time ad quality (including predicted clickthrough rate, ad relevancy, and landing page experience), and landing page experience.

▶ Final Thoughts

Paid advertising is an effective strategy for online visibility and attracting targeted traffic to websites. This article gives you a glimpse of guidance to make your search ads successful.

For the paid search to be more effective, you have to write the ad using the following tips:

📌 Include keywords in your ads.

📌 Don’t make it sound like you are trying to sell them something.

📌 Show trust and credibility.

📌 Always include a call to action.

We would like to know your opinions and experience in this regard. Please comment below.