With Google Ads, you can literally reach any audience, no matter how small, even ballerina stilt walkers.

As a web design company, we understand running Google Ads is a complex world unto itself, and one you shouldn't manage yourself without an extensive background in, and understanding of, how their algorithms work. Having some experience with Google Ads, we've opted to use an outside specialist, instead of doing our own Google Ad campaigns. Because we know how complex it is, we've also found if you're not subscribing to SEMRush, you're already at a disadvantage trying to conduct your own Google Ads campaign.

With that in mind, here's a brief primer on Google Ads.

There's two type of Google Ads:

1. Search ads:

These are the text-only ads that appear on Google's Search Results Page (also called "SERPs"). Below is our ad for a search for " web design company in Columbus Ohio" and "Columbus web design company."

What percent of people click on Google ads? Statistics cite between 5% and 10%. It might not sound like a lot, but in 2020, those ads brought Google over $430 million dollars a day.

Why the range of 5% to 10%? It depends whether someone is searching on a laptop, or on their phone. The difference is, when you're on your phone you have to do more scrolling to get past the ads than you do on your desktop. So more people tend to click on the ads when they're on their phone. This is why, if the majority of your traffic comes from mobile devices, running Google ads might be an important thing for your company to do.

2. Display ads: these are image ads that appear throughout the internet.

These ads appear when you've visited a website and looked at say, a pair of shoes or a car, and you see ads for the very product you searched for on other websites. Or, if the advertiser produces videos, you'd see their ads on YouTube.

Your display ads can also follow your prospects around the internet if they've visited your competitors' websites. Or, if even someone has searched for something using the keywords you use in your website, your ads can target them.And your ads can follow someone around the internet for whatever period of time you decide.

Here's an example of a Google display ad we're running for plastic surgeon websites in Ohio and Florida. Google display ads come in 20+ different sizes (plus other sizes for mobile devices), so this is just one of example.

The Cost.

There are three costs associated with running Google Ads:

1. The cost-per-click (or CPC) for Search Ads
   This is how much you're willing to pay each time someone clicks your text ad on Google's search results page. To over simplify things, we pay about $5 per click for the ads that show up for the keyword "Columbus web design company." (Costs per click vary, so we're just using a single number for this example.)
2. The cost-per-click (or CPC) for Display Ads
   These are much less expensive, and can be between 10 cents and $1.00 per click (again, simplifying things for this blog). You can design all 20+ ads yourself, have your web design company do it, or have Google assemble the ads on the fly. The difference is, you have a lot more control over how the display ads look if you create them yourself.
3. Total cost per day
   This is how much you're willing to spend each day. If we're willing to spend $25 a day (at $5 per click), our search ad can be clicked 5 times before it goes away, and someone else's ad takes it's place. (Again, an over simplification of how it works.)
4. Management fee
   This is the monthly cost for someone to manage your Google Ads program. This covers the time to set up the ads, and just as importantly, to review the ads' click through rate on a regular basis to tweak the wording, the audience, and even the platform (ie: Google, Bing, Yahoo).

Benefit of Running Google ads vs. organic SEO

Running Google Ads is the only way to get on page one on day one.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is when you show up in the organic results, which is where the majority of people click. This takes considerable time and attention to blogging regularly, and other on-page SEO techniques. The consensus is it takes at least 6 months of regular blogging, and on-page SEO work to start to show up well in Google's organic results.

Blogging is an art unto itself as well, since it's the way to showcase your industry knowledge. Because ofd that, you would think the owner of the company or the marketing team, would be the best people to do write blogs. But we found that isn't the case, for three reasons:

1. Everyone already has 100 things to do, and blogging always fall to the bottom of the list.
2. While people know their industry, they're often not inclined to write, or don't feel comfortable writing, and
3. Writing for the web is very different than writing for print.

However, if you are inclined to write your own content, here are ten tips for how to write for blogs.