[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Woo boy. This is going to be a difficult topic. Today we’re going to talk about if you should use Google Paid Ads to promote your small business.

Whenever we talk about using paid ads, there needs to be the understanding that if you want your advertising methods to be successful, you need to diversify your marketing efforts. In summary, Google Paid Ads should not be your company’s only marketing efforts.

If you want a simple yes or no answer to whether your business should use Google’s Paid Ads, it’s going to depend on individual situations and multiple different factors. So as best we can, we’re going to go over the two most common types of ads, and their pros and cons.

The different types of ads.

To start, you’re going to want to consider the different types of ads you can run on Google. Here are the main ones that most people use.

First, there are banner ads. These are image ads you’ll see as you’re scrolling through your favorite hobby or news site. Usually, they appear due to past searches, pages you recently visited or based on keywords on the page you are reading. These are usually best used for impulse buys, or to remind customers of your business.

An effective way to use these ads is as a tactic to draw people back to your site. How it works is someone will visit your site, and then not return. Usually, this happens because that person is checking out a competitor. These type of ads are helpful because Google is scanning for a cookie left in that buyer’s browser, and will show an ad for the product they had seen on your site.

This is best used for reminding people what they were looking at on your site and can be used to offer a promotion to get them to come back and make a purchase.

Next, there are the text ads. Text ads are the ones you will see at the top of every Google search page, or on the side. These are a form of a “pay-per-click” and are generally popular for small businesses to use.

Text ads are used if you’re trying to show up in search and draw traffic to your product through search. Essentially you pay a set amount every time someone clicks on the ad. These are different from “pay-per-impression” ads since you’re only paying for each person that directly clicks through to your site.

With pay-per-impression, you have to pay an amount for anytime someone sees your banner or text on a site, whether they stop and look at it or click through or not.

The problem with paid ads on Google.

While we’re focusing on Google, the same can be said for any form of paid advertisement. Putting all your time, energy, and money into it is not going to give you the results you want in the long run.

The best way to think about marketing your business and how you invest your resources is similar to how you save money for retirement. If you were to ask a good financial adviser, they would tell you to diversify your assets. The phrase “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” is equally applicable here.

You don’t to invest all your marketing budget on paid ads, especially if you just have a flat and static website. The best way for your paid ads to be the most effective is if you’re investing in creating content to help your website rank higher in search.

How to know if paid ads are right for you.

Knowing if you should invest in paid ads is going to depend on your SEO value and type of business.

For example, banner ads success will vary based on your industry. If your audience is a tech savvy one, chances are they will rarely click on a banner ad because they know it’s an ad. However, if you’re selling retirement ads, older people tend to click on them more than younger people.

Pay-per-click ads will have different degrees of success depending on what you are trying to rank for. If you have a lot of competition and can’t invest lots of money per click, you’re going to get stuck on the 7th page of Google.

If you try and rank for more of a niche search keyword, you’ll rank higher.

When we first started one of our other companies, we had to do a lot of pay-per-click ads. In the beginning we had very little organic traffic from SEO. However, because we spent time and money working on our SEO, we eventually dropped the budget on our pay-per-click ads. When our amount of leads did not decline from cutting the budget, we eventually stopped using Google Paid Ads.

Takeaways on using paid ads on Google.

It can be frustrating to know that you can’t just throw money at paid ads and receive a positive response.

To sum up, paid ads should be a helper to your SEO methods, instead of a replacement for them.

Have questions about how to promote your business? We’re here to help. We want to help you succeed with your marketing efforts.

Check out the services we offer, and learn how we can help you transform how your business markets itself.

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