Every company out there with a web presence has heard of the struggle of getting your website to appear at—or at least near—the top of Google search results. It’s an age old SEO quest, tales of which have been passed down from an age that pre-dates the Covid-19 pandemic (which has seemingly gone on for so long that anything that existed before it qualifies as legend).

The truth about said quest is it’s not easily accomplished without putting a good bit of time and effort into some smart SEO practices. But if you are willing to spend the time and money to get to the top of Google organically, perhaps you’ve got what you need to skip the line and reach the summit more consistently—almost immediately. How? Well, you could do so via paid SEM—Search Engine Marketing.

Ever notice those search results that appear at the top of your Google search with the [maybe not so] inconspicuous “Ad” notation to the left of the URL? That otherwise look like just another search result? Those are actually ads from campaigns written and targeted on a platform called Google Ads, a.k.a. Google Ads. Tricksy, yes. Effective? Also yes.

Google Ads is the premiere SEM solution on the Google machine. And “paid” doesn’t have to equate to “expensive.” In fact, Google’s Ads platform is super flexible. You choose your daily budget, create your keywords, write up one ad to start, and—whammo!—Google will do your bidding. Quite literally, as automated keyword bidding is the device that gets your ads placed in the Google search results of prospective customers.

There are no minimum daily budgets on the Ads platform, though experts will tell you you’ll be hard pressed to get the sort of results you’re looking for with just $2/day. That said, with just $10-$15 per day—roughly $300-450 per month—you can reach folks and begin to generate more web traffic and phone calls to your business. Enough for you to start to feel a noticeable difference.

Google Ads doesn’t just limit your ads to Google Search results either. By selecting “Search Network with Display Select” as your campaign type, you can also push your ads to other Google real estate out there on the interwebs—at no additional cost. The Google Display Network can help you reach people while they’re browsing their favorite websites, watching a YouTube video with friends, checking their Gmail inbox, or using apps on their smartphones and tablets.

With budgets you can set yourself, swanky geo-targeting features, the ability to pause and enable ads and campaigns on the fly, and even the option to schedule your ads for certain periods of the day, Google Ads is a powerful asset to have in your marketing tool belt. And one we definitely recommend to a business looking to make an immediate imprint on the internet.

Need some help running your first Ads campaign? We can help! Send us an SOS and we’ll get back to you lickety split.