How much will Google ads cost me?

Everyone is asking this question today because Facebook posts’ organic reach has declined to 5.20%. Also, Instagram’s organic reach is 20%, which is just a small relief. 

But, overall, organic reach doesn’t hold that much power anymore. And to grow your business in 2022, paid Google ads are something that you need like your next breath. 

So, here if you are new to PPC and have no clue how much Google Ads will cost, you have landed on the right post. This article will walk you through different aspects of Google Ads like—

• How much do Google Ads exactly cost?
• Which factors affect Google Ads cost?
• How do Google Ads work?
• How are Google Ads costs calculated?
• How to reduce your Google Ads cost?

So, let’s buckle up, people, as we are about to board a Google Ads cost flight…

How Much Do Google Ads Cost?

To be honest, there’s no exact cost to run Google Ads. There are so many different variables contributing to a Google Ads cost that no one can predict the exact cost. 

Unless you define all your Google Ads variables, you can’t find the exact cost to run paid ads on Google. So, let’s go through each Google Ads cost contributing factor in detail. 

Industry 

The industry is one of the main factors that determine your cost per click (CPC) on Google Ads. Every industry has a different CPC rate, so you have to first check your industry rates and then calculate Google Ads. 

As per the Wordstream Google AdWords Industry Benchmarks for 2020, AdWords CPC across all industries is $2.67 on the search network and $0.63 on the display network. 

Source 

There’s no surprise that Google CPC rates are a bit higher. But “Lawyers” and “Attorney” are the top 10 most expensive keywords on Google. The legal industry is the costliest industry to run Google Ads for $6.75. 

So, if you are a lawyer or legal consultant, you have to spend big bucks on Google Ads to grow your business. That’s because lawyers charge high fees, so Google makes them shed a few bucks on ads. It’s all fair. 

In contrast, eCommerce platforms have to only pay $1.16 to run Google Ads due to heavy competition in the industry. 

All in all, your industry plays a significant role in determining your Google Ads cost. 

Geographical Location 

The geographic location of your targeted audience also adds up to your Google Ads costing. Mostly, countries with high living expenses have higher Google CPC. 

For example, the cost per click in the United States was $1.19 in 2020. On the contrary, Switzerland had $0.92 CPC at the same time. That’s simply because the cost of living is higher in the USA than in Switzerland. 

The cost is further influenced by the areas and industry. Running an ad in metropolitan cities will be more expensive than B tier or C tier cities globally. 

Also, the industry-wise Google keywords cost will change as per the location. For instance, the legal industry has a high CPC worldwide, but it ranks number three in the USA. The insurance sector wins in the USA. 

Source 

Device Type

On which device you plan to run Google Ads also impacts its cost. The mobile CPC rate is mostly cheaper than the desktop, as you can see in this image. 

Source 

As you can see, the average mobile CPC for a digital ad was $0.42, and a single desktop click cost $0.73 in 2019.  

Trends

Obviously, trending Google ad keywords will cost you more. This phenomenon is similar to traditional advertising, where publishing ads in popular newspapers or magazines will cost you higher. 

For example, during the pandemic, many industries have seen positive CPC growth and some negative. The apparel industry saw a huge increase because people started shopping online more compared to pre-COVID-19 time. 

Source 

Similarly, due to the global travel restrictions, people less preferred to travel these days, so the travel and tourism industry CPC went down. 

Source 

In short, running ads on trending keywords will cost you higher compared to non-trending keywords. 

Additional Costs

Besides these common Google Ads cost factors, many other costs impact your digital ad budget, such as:

• PPC Agency: To plan, monitor, and analyze your Google Ads, you need to hire a PPC agency. And this cost is not included in your Google Ads cost; you have to pay extra for service costs that vary from company to company. 
• PPC Management Software: Google Keywords Planner and Ads are free to use. But if you want to effectively manage your multiple ad campaigns, you might have to invest in other paid tools like WordStream, Shape, or Acquisio. 
• Ad Schedule: For how many hours you want to run Google Ads also impact its cost. Ideally, run ads for the time frame when your business is open, like 9 to 5. 
• Customer Cycle: The longer your customers reach the final decision-making process, the higher your CPC will be. 

How Do Google Ads Work?

As you have seen, calculating Google Ads cost isn’t at all an easy job. This is because there are so many factors that constantly change Google’s CPC rate. Thus, you should understand how Google Ads works to better calculate its cost. 

Google Ads functions like an auction system. 

How so? 

Well, let’s imagine you searched for the “best laptop” in the Google search bar. Now, Google will search if your query contains the keywords on which advertisers are bidding currently. 

If the advertisers are bidding on your query-based keywords, the auction begins. Google will next check each contender ads’ Ad Rank and determine where each ad will be placed in the paid results. For example, look at this search result for the “laptop” key phrase:

Here Dell’s ad is ranked above the Amazon ad because its Ad Rank is better. 

Google calculates Ad Rank for each ad by multiplying maximum bid to Quality Score. 

A maximum bid is the highest amount you are willing to pay for the click per cost to Google. 

Quality Score is a bit complex term for which Google considers many things, such as:

• Expected clickthrough rate (CTR): It is a projection that your ad will be clicked when shown.
• Ad relevance: It shows how closely your ad matches the user’s keywords intent. 
• Landing page experience: How much value your landing page offers to the users who click on it. 

How to Calculate Google Ads Cost?

As you now know how Google Ads work, you are ready to calculate the cost for each Google Ads campaign. Here’s the simple Google Ads cost formula:

Ad Rank x Quality Score + $0.01 = Ad Price

Source 

If you observe the image, you will notice that Advertiser 1 had spent less than Advertiser 4 and still had a higher position. And that is the magic of Quality Score, marketers. 

In a nutshell, if your ad’s quality isn’t up to the mark, no matter how much you spend on Google Ads, you will get no results. 

Therefore, you should focus on your ad relevance, user-friendliness, and keyword structure to improve your ad’s Quality Score without increasing your CPC. 

And this takes us to the final topic, “how to gain maximum ROI from your minimal Google Ads budget?”

Tips to Audit your Google Ads Budget 

Are your Google Ads campaigns draining out your bank account? Then, you don’t need to cut your Google Ads efforts. Instead, you simply need to audit your Google Ads budget and do some cost-cutting, such as:

Analysis your keywords 

First of all, take a look at your keywords report and find underperforming keywords. 

This way, you can allocate your money to the keywords that actually bring in sales. 

Google Keywords Planner can help you arrange the keywords by conversion costs. 

From here, you can observe the keywords that offer minimum and maximum conversions. So, you can use your Google Ads budget to target the high ROI keywords. 

Reduce your ad time 

As we all know, time is money. Google Ads also believes in this. So, if you are spending ten hours on ads, you can reduce it to half and free up tons of room in your budget. 

Suppose you run Google ads for your bakery, which is only open from 8 am to 5 pm. So, you should run ads for those hours only when your bakery is open. There’s no need to run an ad 24 hours when your business is only open for 9 hours. 

Reshuffle your budget 

Another solid way to generate maximum ROI from your Google Ads budget is to reshuffle your ad budget. 

If you are running ads on Facebook, Instagram, or other platforms simultaneously, analyze which platform offers you the maximum results. 

And then, simply spend most of your ad budget on that platform. 

This trick applies to all advertising platforms, not only Google Ads. 

Reduce spending on SaaS tools

Advertisers use numerous tools today to run digital ad campaigns, such as: 

• Keyword research tools 
• Performance monitoring tools 
• Social scheduling software, etc. 

In short, today, marketers use software for everything. Some of the popular marketing tools are Mailshake, Slack, Moz, MonsterInsights, and many more. 

Now, if you want to free up your budget, you can let go of non-essential tools or substitute them for free alternatives. Even if you free $50 in your budget, it is sufficient for Google Ads to bring some leads your way. 

Keep a Close Eye on Google Ads Cost

When exploring Google Ads like a platform, it is important to keep an eye on the money. 

With one wrong move, you can exhaust all your advertising budget in the blink of your eye. 

Therefore, calculate your Google Ads cost before launching an ad campaign. Further, you can allocate your budget to the high-performing keywords, locations and hire a professional PPC agency to help you out. 

All in all, first test Google Ads with a small budget and then gradually increase your spending. 

That’s it for now in this post! Now the floor is all yours. Create your Google Ads campaign and share your experience with us in the comments.

Nowadays, the first thing people do to search for their hotel is going online. They put a few keywords and start searching on Google.

So, if you own a hotel, you would want to appear on the Google search page.

And for that, you need to fine-tune your SEO game.

Just showing up on the search engine page is not enough. Your website should appear for the right keywords and rank as number one.

Do you know the average CTR on the first ranking website on Google is 31.7%?

So, it would be profitable to rank on the top of the Google search engine for every relevant search.

Therefore, you have to understand the basics of SEO and utilize it correctly.

Hotel SEO is not that difficult if you know how to do it right. However, if you are not that confident, you can always go for a digital marketing agency.

In this article, I will tell you all the things you should know about hotel SEO. If you follow the tricks step-by-step, you’ll start seeing impressive results within a short time.

But before we get into the SEO tactics, let’s understand SEO and its importance. 

What is SEO for Hotels?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of optimizing a hotel website so that it ranks on the search engine pages. 

When you use hotel SEO, you can establish a good online presence and drive traffic to your website. When you get good traffic, you will get a high number of bookings. 

So, you should consider SEO as a part of your digital marketing strategy. 

If you can get that right, you can easily win over all your competitors. 

Why is Hotel SEO Important?

Whenever your potential customers search on Google, they get a long list of options. With SEO tricks, you can make your website appear in those lists. 

But here is the thing. People prefer clicking on a webpage that ranks first. So, it’s important that you get your website on top. 

Hotel SEO tactics will help you get that position. 

If your website doesn’t appear on the first page of Google, it will not get the required exposure and it will impact your business. 

In simple words, no SEO, no website traffic, and no bookings!

That’s the reason, you have to do optimization to stay in business. 

How to Perform Hotel SEO?

I have been working on hotel SEO for years now. I have found that only a few hotel SEO tricks work. So, I am mentioning them below.

Try to incorporate these into your SEO strategy to get the best results.

1. Understand Your Target Audience

Defining your target audience is the first step of hotel SEO. If you are in business for years now, you will have a good idea of the audience. But if you are starting new, you need to do a little research.

Through the audience research, you’ll understand the characteristics of people who are most likely to book a room at your place. While online, you should target using these characteristics.

These characteristics will be the backbone of your whole SEO strategy. You have to mold your content and targeting based on these.

For example, if you own a budget hotel, your audience will comprise solo travelers, backpackers, and more. So, when you do SEO for these people, you must use keywords that would attract them.

2. Do Proper Keyword Research

Your whole hotel SEO strategy works on keyword research. So, you need to use the audience information to determine the keywords for your website.

Now there are mainly two types of keywords – short tail keywords and long-tail keywords.

You need to focus on both these types.

Let’s say your hotel is in Cairo. So, here are a few possible keywords you can go for.

Source: Ubersuggest

When you start working on your website content, you should try to incorporate these keywords into it.

It will help your website to show up when people search for these keywords. However, you also need to use some keywords which are specific to your hotel.

For example, if your hotel is located near the Nile river (which is a tourist spot), you might want to add “Nile” in your keyword. So, your keyword will be “budget hotel in Cairo near the Nile.”

3. Work on the Page Title, Meta Description, and URL

When you are working on your hotel SEO, you should try to make things easier for the Google crawler.

You can do that by optimizing your website. Your website should give clear signals to the crawler about what it is about.

So, you need to tweak your webpage titles, meta description, and URL.

When Google shows up the results on the search engine page, it comes with the web title, meta description, and URL.

So, if all these things align with your keywords, it’ll help Google and your audience understand your website better.

Here is how a result is shown on the Google search engine page.

The webpage URL is mainly for the Google crawler. While your webpage title and meta description are for your audience.

Web Page URL

The URL is the address of your website’s page. You can use it to move to a specific page of your website. 

Here are some of the ways you can optimize URLs for SEO. 

• Separate the words in your URL using hyphens (dashes). 
• Avoid using any stop or connecting words (like is, with..)

Page Title

Page titles are the first thing your audience will see about your website. So you need to make them perfect. 

Here are a few tips to write an SEO-friendly page title:

• Try to include the primary keyword and make it short and easy.
• The page title length should be within 60 characters.

Meta Description

As it is the summarization of your article, people generally read this. To make it SEO-friendly, you should try to tell exactly what is in the article and use the primary keyword.

4. Optimize Your Web Content

Content plays a major role in SEO. So, you need to include content optimization in your hotel SEO strategy.

The content helps in two things – building authority and getting ranked.

Therefore, even if you have website content for your primary pages, you should try to upload blogs and articles as well.

These contents help in driving more traffic to your website.

For example, you can publish blogs on “10 things to do in Dubai” and add your hotel’s name and link to it. So, when the blog shows up for a search about Dubai, your brand will also get some exposure.

Source: Kerzner International Limited

However, I understand it is not easy to publish blogs and articles daily when running a business. So, what you can do is hire content writers for your website. They will help you deliver SEO content daily.

5. Add Alt Text to All Your Images on Your Website

When you have a hotel website, you will want to add more and more images of your hotel.

So, what if you can use these images to show up in Google searches?

Yes, you can also do SEO with your website images.

Since Google doesn’t understand images, you should add alt text to let Google know what’s in the picture.

When you add alt text to your website’s images, they will appear in the Google images. So, when one clicks on the image, they will open your website.

Therefore, SEO experts generally recommend optimizing all the images on the website. You never know for which photo you can get website traffic.

Source: Google

6. Arrange the Headings and Subheadings

Structured content is easier to read for Google and users. It helps to identify which parts are important and how the whole content is interconnected.

So, instead of writing flat texts, try to emphasize the headings by using the H1 or H2 tags.

There are different headings such as H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, and H6. You have to use these to show Google the hierarchy of importance of the headings in your content.

Overall, using this will help you with your hotel SEO.

Source: National Geographic Society

7. Use Google Hotel Search

Adding Google Hotel Search to your hotel SEO strategy is a must. Google Hotel Search is specifically for hotels around the world. If you can get your hotel to rank on top here, you are bound to get a lot of traffic to your website.

As mentioned earlier, people generally use one way to search hotels online.

“Hotels in (name of the city, town, or vicinity).”

So, you need to ensure that you use these words. However, at the same time, Google Hotel Search emphasizes other characteristics like images, name of the hotel, price, and description.

So, when you use your Google My Business account, ensure that you have these details perfectly.

Getting on top of the hotel listings is not that easy, but if you follow the optimization tactics and get good ratings and reviews, you’ll surely get on top.

Once you are at position one, your hotel will get more visibility. Even if you cannot rank on the first page, ranking on the listing will help you get traffic.

Source: Google

Frequently Asked Questions About Hotel SEO

Q1. How do hotels do SEO for websites?

A. Here are five hotel SEO tactics to use:

• Write unique content with relevant keywords.
• Optimize page title and meta description.
• Ensure the page loads quickly.
• Make the hotel website mobile-friendly.
• Use keywords that will bring good traffic.

Q2. Why do you need to do optimization for hotel websites?

A. Optimization of hotel websites is important because it drives more traffic. Whenever there is huge traffic, hotels get a good number of leads and customers.

Q3. What is SEO in the hospitality industry?

A. SEO in the hospitality industry is all about making the website visible to a large number of people on search engines.

Q4. Is hotel SEO relevant in 2021?

A. Yes, hotel SEO is still relevant in 2021. Leading hotels of the world take the help of digital marketing agencies to do SEO for their website.

Q5. Is SEO legal?

A. Yes, SEO is very much legal. However, the key is to only go for white hat SEO tactics. If you use the black hat ones, Google may penalize your website.

Ready to Work on Your Hotel SEO?

In this digital era, more people are doing their hotel searches online. So, you need your hotel website to start appearing on relevant Google searches. But when there are so many hotel websites, it is not easy to rank high.

So, you should start using hotel SEO tactics.

At the same time, if you use Google My Business properly, you can appear in the right spots on Google.

So, include these tactics in your strategy and comment on how things go for you.