This will make complete sense once you understand a bit of Google's history. Google started in 1998, after the "big boys" in the search engine game like Yahoo and AltaVista were well-established. At the time, few people would have bet that Google would overtake them all - but in five years they have done exactly that. What's even more remarkable is they did so without a bunch of hype and loud marketing. They literally built a better mousetrap and the world beat a path to their door.
So what happened?
Google's mission in life was to build a search engine that would give people exactly what they were searching for, as fast as possible. If you were searching for "California butterflies" they wanted to give you the very best and most popular California butterfly websites on the very first page of results. They developed an amazing mathematical formula for figuring out who visited websites and why, and using that information in their search engine.
So.... when they began to sell Pay Per Click advertising, they were extremely concerned that advertisers also put out messages that were highly relevant. Google rewards you for being relevant, and they let people who are searching vote for you. If your ad gets clicked on, it's relevant. If it doesn't, it's not. It's that simple.
If you can't get 5 out of 1000 people (0.5%) to click on your ad, Google disables your ad. The higher your click thru rate, though, the less you have to pay for the position you want.
So this creates a "Darwinian" effect, a deliberate natural selection that weeds out bad advertisers and rewards good ones. What's good for Google's customers is good for Google and good for you. When all the dust has settled, what really matters is that your ads and your content be relevant to the keywords you're bidding on. Your message must match what the person is thinking.
So... what were they really thinking when they typed in "California butterflies?" That is the question. Figure that out and put it in front of them, and you'll win on Google. Write an ad that matches exactly what they're searching for and you'll beat your competitors by a country mile.
A Valuable Little Piece of Customer Psychology for You:
Here's a little mental trick to help you write Google ads.
Imagine that you are not you. You are your customer.
You're not the dude with the cool solution. You're the guy or gal with some stupid problem. You've got an itch and you want to scratch it. And you're not in front of your computer. You're sitting in front of their computer. What do you type into the search bar on Google? And what do you hope will come up? Answer that question and you'll be successful marketing online.
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