You are a therapist with a service to provide. You know your prospective clients but aren’t getting the flow yet. You have set up a website, yet your traffic is either low or isn’t converting yet. Well, that’s because you are yet to tap into the potential of this great tool called Google Ads, formerly known as Google AdWords. Google ads is a PPC service, which means you only have to pay to Google if a visitor clicks on your ad.
“If it isn’t on Google, it doesn’t exist.” Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia.
This is not to scare you off, but to lay emphasis on the importance of search. Google is a powerful search engine. This is why the goal of many businesses these days is to grab the top spot on Google SERP (Search Engine Ranking Page). It can be done in two ways. One of them is to get organic traffic by writing SEO articles on your industry relevance. But that will direct traffic to your site which might not be in your demographic area to avail your services. This brings us to the second option, Google Ads.
What are Google Ads?
Google ads is a PPC service offered by Google to companies and businesses to advertise their products. If set up properly, it can boost your site traffic by getting you the relevant clients. However, setting it up without proper planning is going to cost you a lot of money and also lead to traffic irrelevant to your services. Before moving on to the step-by-step guide, let’s discuss the drawbacks of Google ads without optimization.
- Using broader search terms, e.g., ‘therapist in the USA’ or ‘best trauma counselor’ will not get you the desired result.
- You might still show up in relevant search, but the uninterested audience, e.g. people searching for free online therapy.
- Overbidding on an ad might cost you a fortune, and in the same you underbidding might not get you a lot of views.
But that’s why we have created this guide. In this guide, we will show you how to best set up Google ads and get results from them. Follow these steps and you’ll be able to run your first optimized ad in no time.
Step 1: Set up your website and optimize
Well, this is a no-brainer really, but it’s pretty important to do this before anything else. Because it’s the way that your clients will find an actionable link to click on the ad. While putting the site link on the ad settings (we will talk about in the following steps), make sure that it isn’t linked to your home page. Rather, link it to pages like an ‘About’ page or a few blogs in your area of expertise. This will ensure that the potential client gets something to check out and be sure before availing of your services.
Step 2: Plan your keywords
Before setting up an ad for your services it is really important to do some keyword planning and research. You can use tools like Google Keyword planner or you can plan your keywords best on your practice expertise. Let’s say you are an ‘addiction therapist’, but your potential clients might not directly put that term in search. They might instead be searching for terms like ‘how do I quit alcohol.’ That’s where keyword research and planning will come in handy. Make a spreadsheet of potential keywords and how you can spin off a few meaning the same.
Step 3: Set up a budget
It’s important to set up your budget, for that will enable you to run your ads for your benefit. Google ads run monthly so plan your budget accordingly. Say you have a budget of $600 for the month, then your daily spend will be $20. Running your ads for a month will provide you with analytics of how they are performing. You can then adjust your budget and optimize your ad spending tailored to your needs.
Step 4: Setting up your first campaign
Now for the fun part of setting up your first ad campaign. But this being the last part, is a longer step than the rest. First of all, you will have to create a Google Ad account if you don’t already have one. Click here{Link to Google Adwords} to get started. It will take you to this page where click on the get started button. This will redirect you to the next page. Select ‘create a campaign without a goal’s guidance. This will help you make the most of your campaign without burning a hole in your pocket.
Don’t be overwhelmed, because this article is exactly to support you in setting this up. Now in the next step select the option ‘search.’ Google ads display your ads on a lot of platforms, but you need it to show up to clients who are using search terms relevant to your services. You don’t want your ad to pop up to someone who is just watching cat videos on YouTube. In the next part select ‘website visit’, and put the URL to your desired page.
Refer to Step 1 above to put your site URL here. Setting up the ad groups or campaigns. It’s best to create a single campaign for the first month and then create multiple campaigns once you see the results. Name your campaign per your specific service. You will see that Google preselects both search and display networks. Deselect display network and continue. The next part is important because now you will enter the location of where your audience is supposed to be from. Let’s say your practice is based in Illinois.
But that’s a broad area. So choose your primary location as Illinois. Next, add your specific area on the search button which prompts ‘enter a location to target or exclude.’ Using the advanced search you can set up a radius (preferably of 10 miles) around your specific location of business. Next is the target prompt.
Choose the third option, and in the exclude prompt, choose the one which is recommended. It says ‘people in your excluded location.’ This is to make sure your ad doesn’t get clicks from people outside your demographics which will save you a few dollars. Next, we need to set the budget and bidding part, which is important and will take some trial and error. Because, if you bid too little, you will not get the desired clicks on your ad. And over bidding might lead to huge spending which you don’t want yet. So set your daily budget for the campaign. Google ads run for 30 days, so divide your monthly budget by 30. After this, you have to choose how to bid.
Here, select ‘clicks’ under the question “What do you want to focus on?” Then you can choose the ‘Maximize clicks’ option and let Google take care of this for you. It will make sure your ad spending is optimized. However, put on a maximum CPC bid limit so that the spent amount doesn’t exceed your budget. After you save and continue the budget and bidding you will be on the create ad part of the process. The only thing left to do now is to write a compelling ad for your services. Here you will be asked to put your final URL, do that keeping in mind step 1.
Next, you have the option to write headlines. There are five slots for this with 30 words each. But the best practice is to stick with 2/3 headlines. Put in your headlines keeping in mind the keyword research. Then you can add two descriptions which allow 90 characters each. Make the most of this and let your prospective client know what your service is all about. Include the possible search terms that might have landed them on that page. Google will generate an ad strength based on metrics like keywords used and uniqueness of headlines.
Do look at it to see if you are satisfied, and then save and proceed by saving and continue. In the next couple of steps, you review the format of your final ad and how they look on search, and if everything seems ok, you can proceed to the billing section. Your first ad will start running soon after you make the payment options and check out. We hope our guide helped you set up your first Google ads campaign. If you need further assistance to set up your Google ads, we at Jumpfire Creative are here to help. You can get a free website audit at our website with no obligations. Reach us at jumpfirecreative.com.
