Step 1: Create a Google Ads account
If you already created your account, skip this step and continue with the next one. Otherwise, navigate to https://ads.google.com/ and click on the Start Now button. If you are not already signed in with your Gmail account, it will ask you to log in first.
You will be prompted to the following screen, where you should click on Skip campaign creation.
Next, you will be asked to set your Business information, including Billing country, Time zone, and Currency. Choose them carefully because once chosen, you cannot change them again.
After submitting, click on the Explore your account button.
Step 2: Select an interface
Do not be alarmed if you end up with a different view than you are used to. Google often tests and changes them on various groups to improve them.
If you end up with the newest version, you can always switch to an older version by clicking Appearance and Use Previous Design.
Once in the older version, you can further change view variants in the bottom left corner or the upper right corner, depending on the variant you end up with.
We will use the newest interface for demonstration, which will become the default view. The individual interfaces vary in style and placement of some menu items; however, in every interface type, your Google Ads ID will be in the upper right corner. This tutorial will not cover individual settings; it will only cover the basics of creating your first campaign.
Step 3: Structure account
If you have multiple businesses, separating them into individual Google Ads accounts might be best. You can create thousands of campaigns in one account, and there are various campaign types. Search campaigns, display campaigns, performance max campaigns, etc., all have their use cases, and choosing the right type of account and campaign structure depends on your business goals.
Budgets are associated on a campaign level; therefore best practice is to always try and separate different services or different locations, for example, across different campaigns. More often than not, you will see that the same types of campaigns and keywords perform differently across different markets, so allocating your resources more efficiently based on their performance is important.
If you have a small budget, spreading it too thin across many campaigns will mean that the campaigns may not perform optimally. In that case, having multiple locations or services within a single campaign is always better. Furthermore, if you segment your campaigns too much and each of them is getting little to no traffic, this may also impact the algorithm, and in that case, it is also better to combine them into a single campaign.
Step 4: Create a search campaign
In this example, we will create a Search campaign, and you can do so by clicking on any of the three highlighted buttons.
Step 4.1 Initial settings
You will be prompted to select your campaign objective and your campaign type. We will choose Leads (calls and form submissions) for the objective and Search for the campaign type.
Additional options will appear below after selecting the objective and the campaign type. Select website visits and paste the link to your landing page. Also, select phone calls and enter your business’s phone number. If you are using 3rd party phone tracking software like CallRail, put in the tracking number you created for ad extensions.
Set the name for your campaign and click Continue. We will create conversion actions later.
Next, you will be prompted to select your bidding strategy. For now, select clicks and put the maximum CPC bid limit you desire. We will revise this once the campaign is created to finish the setup. Click Next.
Step 4.2 Campaign settings
The following screen should appear. Remove ticks from Search Partners and Display Network.
- The Search Partners option is for showing your ads outside of the Google network. While it can be beneficial, you can opt-in for it later and measure the results.
- The Display Network should almost always be turned off. Even if you want a Display campaign in your account, separating your Search and Display is crucial for easier management and resource allocation as they will vastly differ in performance.
Add one or more locations under the Location tab (depending on your account structure, as explained in a previous section), and select the second option under Target. This will ensure that your ads appear only in the targeted locations, as selecting the first option often leads to unnecessary clicks and spending.
Afterward, add the languages you want to target and click the edit button under Ad Schedule.
- In most cases, it is best to separate campaigns with different languages so you can have better insight into their performance (i.e. if the budget and other aspects allow it).
- Select the ad schedule that best fits your business. You can always change it later; it is best to fine-tune the ad schedule after you have enough data, but generally speaking, you can almost always exclude the hours during the night as they will have a far lower conversion rate. You can segment and add more rules for showing ads as long as the hours do not overlap.
After adding your ad schedule and other settings, click Next.
Step 4.3 Keywords and ads
The following screen will appear where you can name your first ad group, and add keywords, text ads, sitelinks, and other elements. However, this tutorial will skip this step and cover each separately to get accustomed to the Google Ads interface. Doing so will also prevent losing all inputs at once if the page gets stuck or you accidentally click the back option.
Click on the trash icon and then on Yes, Remove button.
Skip the next page that appears by clicking on the Budget section.
Step 4.4 Set Your Budget
Set your daily budget that meets your business needs and goals. Setting it too low can negatively affect your campaign’s performance. You can always change it later but keep in mind that changing it too often will negatively impact the bidding strategies associated with the campaign, thus leading to lower performance.
Step 4.5 Review & Publish
Under the review section, double-check your inputs and click on Publish Campaign to finish your setup.
Step 5: Add ad groups and ads
Step 5.1 Ad groups
Planning your campaign structure is essential for easier management and optimal performance. The purpose of ad groups is to further segment your campaigns by different themes, and in this example, we will add three different ad groups because we want to serve the most appropriate landing page based on the user’s search terms.
- The Bankruptcy ad group will cover general search terms like “bankruptcy Arizona” and “best bankruptcy lawyers” and will lead to a landing page that contains both Chapter 7 and Chapter 13 content.
- The Chapter 7 ad group will cover all chapter 7 related search terms, for example, “chapter 7 attorney” and “chapter 7 law in Arizona” and will lead to a landing page that contains only chapter 7 related content.
- The Chapter 13 ad group will cover all chapter 13 related search terms, for example, “top chapter 13 lawyers” and “law firm chapter 13” and will lead to a landing page that contains only chapter 13 related content.
Segmenting your campaigns with ad groups will also allow you to create custom ads more relevant to your keywords and, therefore, more relevant to what the users search for. This practice ensures you create a message match between the search terms, the ads, and the content on your landing page, leading to better conversion rates. If the search terms overlap from one ad group theme to another, you can cross-exclude the ad groups with negative keywords by adding them on an ad group level (will be explained later in this tutorial).
To add ad groups to your campaigns, pick your campaign and then select the Ad groups tab in the sidebar on the left and click on a + button.
Set a name for your ad group and add “bankruptcy lawyer” and “bankruptcy attorney” keywords in this step. Click the Save and continue button as we will add more later directly from the interface menu. If prompted with the Policy details message, tick the Request an exception box and click the Save and continue button again. However, ensure that your landing page works correctly to avoid getting disapproved by Google. Some industries have more rigorous laws, and the Google team manually approves them.
Step 5.2 Ads
Afterward, you will be prompted to create an ad for the ad group. You can also create ads later through the interface menu.
Put in your landing page link, and under the display path, you will see a stripped-down version where you can add additional paths customized for each ad separately.
Google suggests adding at least three headlines and two descriptions, but in practice, it is best to add at least 7-10 headlines and four descriptions to get higher ad strength. Additional best practices for ads include:
- Your headlines should contain keywords to get good ad relevance (a component of the keyword quality score). A higher quality score means lower cost per click, but it also helps with the message match as it creates a connection between search terms and ads, leading to higher clickthrough rates.
- Capitalize each word in the headlines to increase visibility and readability.
- Implement call-to-action headlines and use words like Get, Now, Buy, Download, Free, and other similar words to incentivize action and increase clickthrough rates.
- Add a good variety of headlines so the algorithm can match them properly and create appealing variants. You can also pin each headline manually to a position (one, two, or three).
- Create headlines and descriptions based on the content of your landing page. If users see the same messaging on the ad and the landing page, they are less likely to bounce from the landing page.
Add your business name and logo after adding at least ten headlines and four descriptions. However, you need to verify your account before you can add them. We will add sitelinks, and other extensions later. Click save.
Step 6: Add keywords
Step 6.1 Keyword types
There are three keyword types, and Google support explains them with the following:
- Broad match (comprehensive matching): ads may show on searches that relate to your keyword.
- Phrase match (moderate matching): ads may show on searches that include the meaning of your keyword.
- Exact match (tight matching): ads may show on searches that are the same meaning as your keyword.
All have their use cases, but they operate differently from industry to industry. Typically, it is best to avoid broad matches for the law industry since the cost per click is very high, and there is no room for error with irrelevant search terms.
Step 6.2 How to add keywords
Navigate to the keywords section for the ad group we just created. You can do so through the top menu or the left sidebar. Click on the + button.
You can get keyword ideas from the right panel, but in this example, we used a few more variations of phrase keywords, and all of them in exact matches. Adding all of your keywords in exact matches will allow you to see the performance in a more segmented manner and bid differently if used with manual cost-per-click bidding.
Step 7: Edit / Copy / Paste
Depending on the level, selecting any element will provide you with a wide range of options for that element, such as enable, pause, or even copy and paste.
Copy and paste can be a great time saver if you want to make similar variants of existing elements. In this case, making Chapter 7 Bankruptcy and Chapter 13 Bankruptcy ad groups of an already created Bankruptcy ad group means copying it two times and adjusting the keywords and ads to match Chapter 7 and Chapter 13. Avoid keyword duplicates across different ad groups, so you have cleaner data.
Step 8: Add campaign settings
Some settings, like manual CPC bidding, can only be set after creating a campaign. To set your campaign to manual bidding, simply select your campaign and change it from the menu and any setting like budget, location targeting, etc. A Maximize clicks bidding strategy can sometimes overspend in the first few days, i.e., until the algorithm stabilizes. Testing other automated bidding strategies, such as Maximize conversions, is best to do later once you have more data.
Step 9: Add additional campaign assets
You can supplement your ads with additional assets (extensions) to make them stand out and provide more context to your services. We will add Sitelinks, Callouts, and Structured snippets in this example. If you haven’t already added the Business name, Business logo, and Call assets, you can always add them from the Assets tab.
Step 9.1 Sitelinks
In addition to making your ads stand out more, Sitelink assets are clickable links, turning your ads into five ads within one. While it does not mean that all sitelinks will be shown every time, best practice suggests adding at least four with full descriptions.
Sitelinks are generally populated with links such as the Contact page, About page, Team page, etc.; however, if you are using a dedicated landing page like in this tutorial, it may be best to send all of the Sitelinks to that same page, and just use them as a content addendum for your ad.
Ideally, you could create a modified version of your landing page for each of the Sitelinks, but if you do not, you need to add different parameters to the link because Google does not allow the usage of the same link for more than one Sitelink. Adding real URL parameters or made-up ones like “?sitelink=contact” and “?sitelink=about” circumvents that rule.
Step 9.2 Callouts
Callouts are always placed after your descriptions and can be a great way to add simple yet short selling points about your service. Best practice suggests adding at least four.
Step 9.3 Structured snippets
Users can learn more about your services’ full catalog through snippets without visiting your website. Structured snippets can also be used as Amenities, Courses, Types, Models, and many more.
Step 10: Add negative keywords
Step 10.1 Using Search bar as navigation
The search bar is a great tool for immediately accessing any campaign, tool, or setting. Start typing into the top search bar or press the G + T keys to access the bar via a shortcut.
Step 10.2 How to add negative keywords
Negative keywords are essential to any successful campaign as they exclude undesirable traffic. You can add negative keywords directly to your campaigns or ad groups, but you can also create Negative keyword lists and populate them with thousands of negative keywords. Using lists, you can update your negative keywords more easily if you have multiple campaigns.
Negative keywords are added as broad match keywords and will exclude only search terms that contain that exact negative keyword. That is why you immediately add singular and plural nouns for most negative keywords, e.g., school and schools. If your negative keyword contains more than one word, add it as a phrase match (“chapter 11”). You can preemptively add negative keywords to avoid wasting resources, for example, different states or cities where you do not offer services, but you should also add them continually after identifying them through search term reports.
