Three ways your business can show in SERPs (search engine results pages) when people seek your products and services is through 1) paid advertising, 2) local search and 3) organic search. The first result is from using the Google Ads platform, formerly known as pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. The last two are the result of digital marketing tactics known as local search promotion and search engine optimization (SEO).
All are good tactics that can be successful in bringing leads. However, there are situations when paying for a sponsored search engine listing through Google Ads makes sense. Here are 10 situations when Google Ads is the right program to use.
1. Faster results
Organic search requires search engine optimization (SEO). This includes a variety of ongoing actions, with content optimization as one of the main ones. Local search is affected by some of the same criteria and organic search. It additionally requires that you secure both a high quantity of and good quality reviews, as well as reputable backlinks to your website. SEO and local search promotion often take months to start seeing results. Conversely, you can launch a Google Ads campaign quickly, within 1-2 weeks.
2. Geo-targeting
Google Ads can be targeted displayed to prospects based on their geographic location. For businesses that operate within a specific geographic area, paid advertising provides a method to target ads based on a business’s geographic market. You can target Google Ads to show in certain states, towns, or even zip codes. Conversely, SEO can be difficult to target specific geographic areas or control the geographic area. And local search typically only promotes you within the city of your physical location, not necessarily within surrounding cities or geo locations further away from your physical address depending on how many other competitors are nearby.
3. Initial investment
In comparison to other tactics, Google Ads do not require a large investment up front. SEO typically requires website copy modifications, ongoing and consistent on page optimization, as well as other time-consuming actions. SEO may also require that you obtain additional links to your website months in advance of a traffic increase. For these reasons, paid advertising usually requires less initial investment to start showing results.
4. Marketing intelligence
Paid advertising lets you test many keywords to see which ones convert best. Then you can eliminate those keywords that do not perform. On the other hand, development of an SEO campaign requires that you define the keywords before implementing the SEO campaign, that is, before knowing which ones will have the highest impact. Companies planning an SEO campaign may want to run a Google Ads campaign first to determine which keywords they want to target.
5. Time sensitive offers
Google Ads can start and stop on specific dates. This makes paid advertising campaigns the ideal way to promote special events as well as seasonal and limited-time sales.
6. Competition
Paid search engine ad campaigns let you compete with other websites regardless of size. If you’re trying to develop an SEO campaign to compete with large sites, or sites that have been running SEO campaigns for a long time, it can often take months to achieve good results.
7. Top of page positioning
Google typically places three to four ads at the top of each results page. This allows your ad to promote to users without scrolling down the page.
8. No long-term commitment
Google Ads require no commitment timeframe. You can stop a campaign at any time. We do recommend that you plan on running a campaign for at least 90-180 days to allow the platform to complete its learning mode and provide better optimization.
9. Protection against algorithm updates
You can’t be certain that an organic search result will remain in its current position. Over the years major Google algorithm updates caused serious disruptions to organic search engine results.
10. Target more and specific keywords
You can set your campaign to display ads for any number of keywords and can keep your ads from showing for specific keywords searches. For example, you can advertise on the search term “green widgets” but not have your ads show for “free green widgets”.
Search engine advertising works for many companies. If it didn’t, businesses would not use it. According to Search Engine Land, search advertising spending in the U.S. hit a record $84.4 billion in 2022. It continues to account for the largest share of digital ad spending, with revenues up 7.8% year on year.