Google for Nonprofits Blog: Getting Started With Google Grants

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Getting Started With Google Grants

Thursday, April 21, 2011

I’ve Been Awarded a Google Grant! Yay! Now What?

First, congrats! If your organization has been accepted to Google Grants, you’ve joined a growing group of nonprofits that are harnessing the power of online advertising to reach people across the globe. With Google AdWords in-kind advertising, your nonprofit can do many things: promote your website, raise awareness for your cause, recruit volunteers, attract new donors, market fundraising events and more.

That all sounds great, but you are new to online advertising. How do you actually use AdWords to achieve these goals? Sit tight and have no fear. The Google Grants Team has some handy tips just for you!

1. Structure, Structure, Structure

Structuring your AdWords account effectively can have a big impact on the success of your AdWords campaigns. Your account is broken down into three levels: account, campaigns, and ad groups. Each campaign should focus on one main service or offering you want to promote. Handy Tip: Look at your website and organize your account structure to match your website structure. Let us show you what we mean:

With this organized structure, you can easily see which campaigns are performing well and which need help! For example, you may notice that your Volunteer Campaign has a good clickthrough rate (CTR) and a high number of sign-ups, but you do not see the same results in your Donations Campaign. This alerts you that you may need to adjust your keywords, ad text or the landing page that you are directing users to for this campaign.

2. Keywords are Key!

Keywords are the heart of your search-based advertising campaigns. When selecting keywords, think like a user. If you were a user looking to volunteer at an animal shelter, you might search on ‘animal shelter volunteer’, ‘volunteer with dogs’, or ‘help animal shelter’. Brainstorm all of your keyword ideas, and then organize those keywords in themed lists.

Each of those themed lists will be their own Ad Group. That way, the ad text can specifically match the keywords in that group. Now when a user searches on ‘volunteer with animals’, your ad will say ‘volunteer with animals‘, which is highly relevant to the words the user searched on and will entice them to click on your ad.

Handy Tip: Getting stuck? Need more keyword ideas? Use the Keyword Tool!

3. Make Your Ads Sing!

Your goal is to attract users to your website. In order to do that, your ads should be simple, enticing, and relevant to what users are searching for. Follow our handy ad text optimization tips to make your ads sing!

Keywords in Ad Text: Include keywords in your ad text, especially in your title. Whenever a user types that keyword and sees your ad, the keyword will appear in bold font within your ad. This helps draw the user’s attention to your ad.

Call-to-Action: Include a call-to-action such as ‘sign up now’ or ‘donate online’. This encourages users to click on your ad and ensures they understand exactly what you expect them to do when they reach your landing page.

Clear Message: Use clear and specific ad text that highlights the benefits of your product or service or why your organization is unique .

Choose the Best Destination URL: Take the user to the specific landing page that has the information or service described in your ad. For example, if your ad is asking for a donation, take the user to the landing page where they can find out how to donate. If users do not find what is promised as soon as they arrive, they are more likely to leave your website.