Top Google Advertising Tips for Small Businesses

Birgitta is the Digital Marketing Manager at Funding Circle, and has worked at the company since December 2012. Originally from Sweden, she is a digital specialist and joined Funding Circle to bring paid search in-house.

We asked Birgitta for her Top Tips to help businesses looking to explore Paid Search.

What is paid search?

Paid search is advertising within the sponsored listings of a search engine, for example Google Ads (also called Adwords). The top three results of a Google search and the adverts on the right hand side are sponsored. My job is to make sure Funding Circle appears there for the relevant keyword searches.

What were the first things you learnt about paid search?

Data! The endless amounts of real time data you get access to. It’s very powerful as it allows you to run tests on wording in adverts or landing pages, these findings can later be applied across the business.

What would you say are the key items people should think of when setting up paid search?

Select the keywords you bid on carefully and start out small. Ensure the advert copy is relevant to the keyword and that the landing page is optimised to convert the user (whether that is sign up for a newsletter or purchase a product).

What is it that you do day to day?

Lots of testing! Advert copy testing, landing page testing, keyword expansion and funnel analysis to make sure we’re managing spend efficiently.

Are there any online tools that might help businesses looking to set up paid search?

Google Adwords provides a free keyword expansion tool called keyword planner. This should be used when setting up a paid search account as it estimates search volumes for selected keywords and helps expand on the keywords you’ve already identified for your business.

Top tip?

When evaluating performance, if you choose to bid on your own brand terms, always split brand traffic from generic as they perform completely differently.