SEO and Google Ads: How They Work Together

Done right, Google Ads can make you a lot of money; done wrong, they can cost you serious campaign dollars without much return on investment. Because Google is a search engine, the difference between flailing and flourishing on the Google Ads platform often comes down to search engine optimization (SEO).

How Google Ads works

Google Ads is what’s known as a cost-per-click (CPC) or pay-per-click (PPC) platform. The terms are interchangeable, but they both mean that the advertiser pays a predetermined amount whenever a user clicks their ad. Advertisers can choose from a variety of formats, or campaigns, for their digital marketing, including:

• Search campaigns: Displays text-based advertisements on Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs) whenever someone searches for a product or service similar to yours.
• Display campaigns: Image-based, ads manifest themselves as clickable banners embedded into websites and apps.
• Video campaigns: Ads are triggered either before or during streaming video content, such as YouTube.
• Shopping campaigns: Promotes your product in a catalog-style format (company/product name, image thumbnail, price, brief description) on the Google Display Network. Advertisers must register with the Google Merchant Center to be eligible.
• App campaigns: Developers market their iOS or Android app through Google Search, YouTube, Google Play, and beyond.

How much do I pay per click?

That depends on the keyword(s) you’ve bid on and your Quality Score (more on this later). Keywords are the heart of search queries — the distillation of what searchers are looking for. They also trigger the display of related Google Ads. The more popular keywords are with searchers, the more coveted they are for advertisers. When more than one advertiser lays claim to a keyword, it is put up for auction.

The prize here is visibility (more visibility = more potential customers), and unlike a traditional auction, visibility isn’t awarded outright to the highest bidder. It is awarded to the highest bidder with the most relevant advertisement. Display priority is a function of cost-per-click bid multiplied by Quality Score (which is on a scale from 1–10).

• Click-through rate (CTR): number of times a user clicks the link to your website versus the number of times it is shown (impressions)
• Keyword relevance: how closely your product or service matches the keywords you’ve bid on
• Landing page user experience (UX): once people click on your link, do they stay on your website and actually convert (i.e., buy what you’re selling) or bounce (i.e., leave) because the experience didn’t match their expectations?

Quality Score is based on three factors:

Consistency between the phrasing and visuals of your ad and your website ( message match) thus becomes critical; this is where SEO comes into play. Businesses who optimize their content attain higher Quality Scores and pay less to get seen than those who don’t. And when customers take action (whether that’s visiting a website, making a call, or showing up to a physical store), you’re more earn their business because you’ve given them exactly what they’re looking for.

SEO: The ultimate Google Ads discount

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Connect the content on your website or online store with the keywords people are searching for and you stand to profit majorly. Not only will you reel in more customers, but you’ll also pay far less for results than your competition.

Originally published at https://www.ewsposts.com on July 11, 2019.