Eight Things Nonprofits Should Know About Google AdWords

When accessing the internet, people use a search engine 91 percent of the time (equivalent to the percent accessing their email). Two thirds of those searchers use Google over any other search engine. What if you could make sure when a user types in a search query to Google, your site was at the top of the list? Well, with Google AdWords you can.

The content on your site is always most important in terms of driving visitors to your site and increasing your web prominence. Your content will bring most of your audiences to your site, because they know you or others in the same area are mentioning/linking to you. However for those organizations wishing to go the extra step, Google AdWords allows you to market your site on a pay per click agreement in areas on the web users are already looking for content related to your's. In AdWords, you submit keyword strings and Google will show your ad, and your site, in specified locations on their network — most notably at the top of search results when someone searches on a variance of your keyword strings. Here are eight things every nonprofit should pay attention to before setting up their Google AdWords account.

1. Google Grants = Free Money

I can’t think of any reason why any eligible nonprofit would not apply for a Google Grant. If you get the award, you are getting $10,000/month in free advertising. The application process is fairly simple and it gives you free advertising on the world’s best search engine. If you take any of these points away, let it be this one. Even if you don’t spend much time working with your AdWords account, it will still bring in some traffic, so unless you want to remain anonymous, apply for a Google Grant today. The only point I would make here is that if you do have a Google Grant you will need to login and show some account activity otherwise Google will shut it down.

2. There Are More Adwords Networks

When most people think of AdWords, they think of the advertising that appears when performing keyword searches on Google.com. However there are also two others: the content delivery network and mobile advertising. You probably have seen ads on other sites which say "Ads by Google" towards the bottom of them. (Here are a few examples.) This is the content delivery network. It spans other sites' content and places your ads in various areas based upon your keywords relation to that content. This allows you to create visually appealing image or even video ads, instead of only copy. AdWords can also be setup for mobile advertising which will show your ads when a user searches Google on their mobile device. Advertisers have seen tremendous ROI and high success rate when using mobile advertising, particularly when your ad copy uses a phone numbers that a user can simply click to call. If you are going to advertise in these different areas make sure you decide upon different ad copy and keywords for each. Strong ad copy for one medium will not necessarily do well on another – actually it is very unlikely it will. 

3. Good Ads Have Very Strong Landing Pages

Your landing page not only determines the strength of your ad as compared to others' ads (more about your "quality score" below), but also is the first thing a user will see upon arriving at your site. Generally it should not be your home page, but the specific page on your site your ad is referencing. Users who click your ad expect to find content that relates directly to that ad copy, and if it is not immediately linked when they come to your site, they will probably leave. For example, if you mention staying connected to news items, they should immediately be able to see where to signup to stay connected, not just your home page or a list of your content.

4. Immediate Action Opportunities = Stronger Conversion Numbers

Users love to do stuff. Allowing your users to engage with your site allows them to feel more connected to you. Whether it’s signing up for a newsletter, signing a petition sent to Congress, or just downloading a white paper, you want to engage with your users. Strong landing pages should take users directly to these action opportunities.

5. Test, Test, Test

Like any form of advertising, even if you know your audiences extremely well, you don’t know them perfectly. Not only that, but the public’s mood will also vary based upon other extenuating factors as well. So test your ad copy and its associated landing pages. Don’t just set up an ad and expect everyone to click it. Monitoring is key. Even an ad which performs well initially, may not represent the best-performing ad you can create. Nor can you rest assured that it will remain so successful over time. 

6. Hook Your Account With Google Analytics

If you have a Google Analytics account, you are one click away from linking your AdWords account to it. This allows you to see the behavior of users who come to your site from the ad as compared to other organic visitors. Setting up goals in Google Analytics allows you to see quantifiable justification for your AdWords spending. Here is how to link Adwords and Google Analytics accounts.

7. How To Understand Your Quality Score

You don't need to spend more money to get better ads. Instad, focus on your quality score. Confused on how that is devised? It’s actually pretty simple:

• Click-through rate on Google.com (normalized by your ad's position)
• Display URL click-through rate
• Relevance of keywords to the ads in the specific ad group
• Relevance of keywords and ad to the search query
• Landing page relevancy
• Account performance in geographic region
• Account history
• Other smaller relevancy factors

So examine your AdWords, and determine if you are hitting all of these areas. As stated in number 5 above, test them out. Maybe you can make an AdWord campaign that much better by simply changing / tweaking the landing page for it. Or try looking at how it performs in different geographic regions — maybe the ad just doesn't speak well to people from some area and they are pulling down your ad's overall performance.

8. Understanding Your Searchers Is Paramount To Success

Someone coming to your site from a search has a much different mindset than someone coming to your site directly or even as a referral from another site. Ask yourself "How could someone search for us?" A user searching for your organization name is going to come to your site regardless. You need to think about other queries someone would submit and have an interest in your site's content. Also, recognize that you probably won't be able to get your site at the top of search results, nor have enough money to spend on an AdWords campaign to compete with others who have much higher marketing budgets (Google's Keyword Tool can help you measure your keywords relevancy and your competition for it). Think about your site's content and what separates you from other comparator sites. Where do you excel in? These tactics will help you to generate successful AdWords campaigns.

Again, improving your site's content is the best way to drive visitors to your site and increase your overall internet prominence. However, AdWords is like the frosting on top of the cake. Even if you are at the top of a Google search result list, why not also be listed in the Google AdWords space even above that? You don't need to be a math major to know that more ads makes it more likely someone will click one of those links.