Google Ads

Alright, step number one to working with Google AdWords is to create a Google account. Just like Facebook, if you want to work with Google AdWords, you need to have a Google account. If you already have a Gmail account, you're good to go. If you don't have a Google or Gmail account, you need to create one now.

I will demonstrate how to do this. First, go to Gmail.com. You might see your other accounts listed. Select "Use another account" and then click "Create an account." Choose the option "For myself" and enter your desired email address and a secure password.

For example, I'll use "Gmail test" as the name. You will need to enter a password. I'll generate a secure password using LastPass and input it here. If the username isn't allowed, try a different one. For instance, "John Sykes" might already be taken, so try something unique like "JohnSykes3330."

Next, you'll see an option to add a phone number, which is optional, so you can skip it if you prefer. You'll also need to provide a recovery email address, which is important in case you forget your password or login details in the future. I'll use "enick@businessofarchitecture.com" as my recovery email.

Then, enter your birthday to confirm you are over 18. For example, I'll use "January 1, 1972." Select your gender, then click "Next."

Review and accept the terms and services. Once you've accepted, your new Google account will be created.

Now, you have a brand new Google account. Make sure to keep track of the username and password you created.

The next step is to go to AdWords.Google.com. In the next video, I'll explain what to do next.

Okay, so if you followed the instructions in the other video, you already have a Google account or a Gmail account. Now we're actually going to sign in to Google AdWords. Go to ads.google.com and click either "Sign in" or "Start now." I'm going to click the "Start now" button.

It's going to ask me to sign in. I'll sign in with this test account that I created here. Make sure I'm using the right password.

After signing in, it will pull up the introductory screen. AdWords has two versions: a simplified version called AdWords Express and the version that gives us more control for experts. We want to use the latter, so click on the link that says "Experienced with Google Ads." Then click "Skip and create campaign later."

Now, it's asking us to confirm our business information. It's important that this is correct because it will be very difficult to change it later. Make sure you have the correct currency, time zone, and country. Everything looks good for me, so I'm going to click "Save."

There you go. The AdWords account is set up. In the next video, we'll show you how to set up your first advertising campaign.

In the previous videos, you learned how to set up an AdWords account. The next step is to set up a billing or payment method. You might see an error message if this is not done yet. To set up your payment method, follow these steps:

1. Click on "Tools" and then go to "Billing and Payments."
2. Under this section, enter your payment information. Start by typing in your business name. For example, I will enter "Enoch Sears" or "Architect."
3. Fill in your address information and primary contact details.
4. Enter a phone number.
5. Add your credit card information. Choose whether you are adding a debit or credit card. I will add my card information here. (Note: I will pause the video to keep my credit card information secure.)

Once you've entered all the information, agree to the terms, and click "Submit." After submitting, you are ready to move on to the next step.

Okay, now that we've set up billing in our account, it's time to run our first campaign. Before we start, I want to quickly go over the two different kinds of campaigns we can create in AdWords. Actually, there are more than two, but we'll focus on the main ones.

Click on "Campaigns," then click the blue button to start a new campaign.

You'll see different types of campaigns. We are going to focus on a search campaign. A search campaign means that when someone searches for a term, like "Beverly Hills architect," your ad will appear at the top or bottom of the search results. This is search advertising, where you bid on certain keywords to have your ads show up in Google search results.

Another type of campaign is display ads. Display ads are the banner ads you see on websites, like Architect Magazine. These are more advanced, and we won't cover them in this training.

We know we're going to do a search campaign. It's asking us what we want here: leads, sales, or website traffic. Let's set up a campaign for website traffic.

Select "Website traffic" and enter your business's website URL. For this example, we'll use the URL of our "Ask the Expert" page. Copy the URL and paste it in.

Name the campaign "Ask the Expert." Turn off the Google Display Network and Google Search Partners. We want to focus only on the search network.

Now, let's target the right audience. I'm near Fresno, in Visalia, California, so I'll type in "Visalia, California." Select the target area, which shows approximately 293,000 people. Choose "English" for the language. Leave the audience section blank for now.

Set the daily budget to at least $25. The delivery method can remain standard. We want to focus on conversions. Leave the rest of the settings as they are.

Next, let's add ad extensions. These are additional links or callouts that can appear with your ad. For example, you can create callout extensions for "Custom Homes" and "Whole House Renovations." These will appear at the bottom of your ad.

Click "Save and Continue," and then we'll set up our ad groups. Name the ad group "Visalia - Ask the Expert."

Enter the keywords you think people will search for. Use brackets for exact match keywords, like [Visalia architect], and quotation marks for phrase match keywords, like "Visalia architect." You can also use the plus sign for broad match modifiers, like +architect.

Add variations of these keywords, such as "hire architect," "home design architect," and "Visalia home design architect." Include as many relevant variations as you can think of.

Keywords are crucial for the success of your ad. Try to anticipate what potential clients will type into Google. I'll provide an article below this video explaining the different keyword match types (brackets, quotation marks, and plus signs).

Click "Save and Continue," and now we'll create our ad. Enter the final URL, which is the URL of your landing page.

Write compelling headlines and descriptions. For example:
- Headline 1: "Enoch Sears, Architect"
- Headline 2: "Ask Me About Your Project"
- Headline 3: "Free Project Feasibility Call"

Descriptions could be:
- Description 1: "Not sure where to start? Book a free project feasibility call."
- Description 2: "Visalia's Leading Custom Home Design Firm."

These headlines and descriptions should clearly convey what you offer and encourage people to click on your ad. You can see a preview of the ad on the right side of the screen.

Click "Done," and your first ad is set up. It's always a good idea to create variations of your ad to see which performs best. You can do this by clicking "Create new ad" and experimenting with different angles.

Go to "Campaigns" to see your campaign and ad groups. Check the keywords you're targeting. To see the ad itself, go to "Ads and Extensions." Your ad will be under review, which usually takes about 10 minutes.

Once your ad is live, check on it daily to see the search terms people are using. Exclude non-relevant search terms to optimize your ad's performance. I'll cover how to do this in a separate video.

Congratulations, you have set up your first ad, and it is ready to go.

Alright, this is a very important video because we will be going over how to optimize your Google AdWords campaigns. The last thing you want to do is launch your ads and then forget about them. If you do that, you'll burn through your cash and waste a lot of money. We need to keep tabs on it every single day. Every morning, you should check Google AdWords. When you log in and click on "Overview," you will see something like this.

This overview provides a general summary of your campaign. It shows all the important information. One of the most interesting things to pay attention to is the search terms. Click on "All Search Terms" from your dashboard to see what people have typed into Google to find your ad.

Some of these terms you'll want to add, and some you'll want to exclude because they're not relevant. For example, in this particular account, we can see what people have searched for. If you can't see all your search terms, you can adjust the number of rows shown at the bottom, such as setting it to show 500 rows.

To find these search terms, click on "Keywords" on the left-hand side. This will take you to a page where you can view search keywords, which are the ones you're bidding on, and negative keywords, which are the ones you've excluded. Click on "Search Terms" to see all the terms people have typed into Google that have caused your ads to appear.

Review this list daily because you might get some irrelevant terms, like "architect 7925 job city of Los Angeles," which indicates someone searching for a job. Click on it and add it as a negative keyword. You can delete the specific term or add it with quote marks to exclude any search containing "jobs."

Continue reviewing and excluding irrelevant terms. For example, you might not want to exclude highly specific or unlikely terms like "The Kaufman house was built by the Austrian-born architect Richard Neutra." However, you should exclude common irrelevant terms, such as those related to job searches.

You can also add relevant terms to your keyword list. For example, if "architectural design" appears, you might want to add it as a keyword.

Over time, you'll prune out non-relevant keywords and add valuable ones. To see your negative keywords, click on "Negative Keywords." This shows all the terms you've excluded, such as "car wash," "cheap," "cloud," "college," and "architectural colleges."

This is how you optimize your campaign over time. When you click on "Campaigns," you can see how your campaigns are performing. Set the timeframe at the top to view performance data. You can sort and filter by different metrics, such as click-through rate (CTR). Anything above a 1.5% CTR is good, and 2-3% is excellent. You can also see how many people are clicking on your ad.

For example, the most successful ad in this account had 676 clicks. Click on the campaign to see the different ad groups, which might be based on areas. For instance, "Santa Monica Architects" shows the keywords and ads set up for that group.

If you need to pause your ads or lower the budget, you can do that at the campaign level. Navigate back to "Overview," and from there, you can see all campaigns. To pause a campaign, click on the green button in the column to change it to gray, which pauses the ad.

That's how you optimize your ads over time and ensure you aren't spending money unnecessarily.