How to advertise your business with Google?

Google is no doubt the biggest search engine in existence today, with 1.2 billion searches happening every day.

Advertising through such a company can give your business more exposure than any other advertising method. But there are so many ways to advertise with them. Which one will suit your business? The main objective of advertising online is to create exposure when people search an item they need.

Here are three methods of advertising your business using the search engine Google.

AdWords

The oldest and most known system is called AdWords and it is the main source of income for Google. How does it work?

This application lets users create their own ads using tools and keywords. The ad will appear on the Google search result page, on the right side and on top of the search results under the tag “Ads” in small letters.

The good thing about AdWords is that you, the advertiser, choose the keywords that will trigger appearance on related searches. You pay only when the ad is being clicked on and the visitor goes to your website.

The advertiser can set a limit to how much money he is willing to spend for his ad to appear and this, among other factors, determines the actual placing of the ad on the list. It is called PPC (pay per click) advertising, and the bidding starts at $0.05 for a single click. The minimum required budget per day to advertise with AdWords is only one dollar. You can select the daily budget and select specific area or the time to display your ad.

This program is very popular because it allows its users to control every aspect of the campaign. Each aspect can be fine-tuned to increase efficiency and improve result in terms of getting the right people to your site.

What sounds very simple, is nothing but. Searching the terms AdWords on Google will yield a plethora of sites ready to teach you how to work with the system and improve your return. Google evolves and adjusts all the time, coming up with new logarithms to stave off hackers and people who are trying to game the system. Running a successful AdWords advertising campaign can be complex, even when dealing with the system on its most basic and principal level.

Advertisers have made their knowledge of working with AdWords their main source of income, abandoning their initial goals, the more they got immersed in this world of PPC advertising and understood how different factors influence their click-through rate.

Banner Ads

Another system for advertising online is Banner ads. Banner ads use Flash, eye-catching graphics or animation and appear on specific web pages. When clicked the banners connects you to the advertised site.

Banners can be created by a person without vast knowledge in coding and HTML (the language used by programmers). There are websites that offer an  already designed banners for sale, Google AdWords published Editorial Guidelines that serve as guideline for writing online ad copy. The guidelines include everything from spelling and style to recommendations on length, keywords and content.

The better the ad relates to the website it’s placed on, the more likely it is to be effective and create a click-through.

There are some ways you can place your banner on a desired website; in one system, Banner ads are triggered by keywords supplied by the advertiser. Another way is to exchange banners with a site you would like your banner to appear on. There are banner exchange programs, which a little search on the web will unveil, and you can contact the search engine companies like Google, Yahoo etc and have them place your banner ads of different sites. With this system keywords trigger the appearance of the banner, and you, the advertiser has no control on where they appear.

Banner Ads are usually charged by Cost per Impression (CPI, or CPM). Often a price will be set based upon a cost per thousand impressions, or views, and depend on other factors.

 Banner ads can be harder to control, however, because any changes requires a new banner to be uploaded. Placement on some pages may be pricey at times.

Experts recommend Banners be only part of your online advertising campaign. Combining them with other methods like e-newsletters, search engine advertising and search engine optimization will yield the maximum effect.

Google Places

Google Places is a location based service that allows you to list your business on Google maps. Google allows business owners to manage their physical business location information. This information appears on the search result page when the location and kind of business is typed into the search bar. It is a free service which business owners have to “unlock”.

There is of course a premium service that allows business owner to update their information, add a picture that will appear on the front page, add reviews and special offers.  A tag appears on Google maps that shows the location of the business.

Users of the service will get a decal for their place of business that will allow users to scan it with a smartphones and go straight to reviews about the place. Google advertises it as being useful by the computer and in the physical world. 

This is one of the great ways to get targeted traffic to you website from the place you are located.