When you enter a search query in a search engine, you’ll be met with a

multitude of results across many search engine result pages (SERPs). Most
search engines have a similar results structure. The results usually contain a
bold title link (the title of a search result that links to a webpage) above a
snippet (the description or summary part of the search result).

One search result on a search engine result page for “career certificates.”
The title link and snippet are labeled.

As you learned previously, Google automatically generates these results

based on a page’s webpage title element and either its meta description or a
relevant section of the page’s visible text. As a reminder, a webpage title
element provides the user and search engine with a page’s topic. A meta
description provides the search engines a summary of what the page is
about.

The webpage title element and meta description from a webpage.

This reading provides some best practices for influencing title links and
snippets to help you capture your desired audience.

Influence your title links

Title links provide users with quick insights into the content of a result and
why it’s relevant to their query. They are often the primary piece of
information people use to decide which result to click on.

Google generates title links from both the content of a webpage and
references to it that appear on the web. While Google automatically
determines these title links, you can influence them and increase their
effectiveness by following these best practices:

Do:

Accurately describe each page’s content in your title elements.

Write descriptive but concise titles.

Make sure your titles read naturally.

Create unique titles for each page.

Give each page’s main headline greater visual weight and prominence.

Don’t:

Use text in your title elements that has no relation to the content on the
page.

Use default or vague text in your titles, like “Home,” “Untitled,” or “New
Page 1.”

Use a single title in all title elements across your site’s pages.

Make your titles too lengthy or wordy.

Use repeated or boilerplate text in your titles.

Stuff unneeded or excessive keywords into your titles.

Control your snippets by creating quality meta descriptions

Google sometimes uses the meta description from a webpage to generate a

snippet in search results. A meta description informs and interests users with
a short, relevant summary of what a particular page is about. It can help
convince the user that the page is exactly what they’re looking for. Follow
these best practices to write effective meta descriptions:

Do:

Accurately summarize the page’s content.

Include all information users need to determine whether the page will be
useful and relevant to them.

Create unique descriptions for each page on your site.

Don’t:

Write a meta description that has no relation to the content on the page.

Use generic descriptions like “This is a web page” or “Page about women’s
clothing.”

Fill the description with too many keywords.

Copy and paste the entire content of the webpage into the meta description
tag.

Use a single meta description across all of your site’s pages.

Key takeaway
Effective title links and snippets can encourage people to click on the link to
your webpage. When you follow the best practices described in this reading
and approach crafting webpage title elements and meta descriptions
thoughtfully, you can help get your brand noticed.

The Google knowledge panel is a Google search engine results pages (SERPs)
feature that displays brand and business information separate from general search
results. This reading describes knowledge panels and provides set-up steps to
establish business details.

The Google knowledge panel

Knowledge panels are information boxes that appear on Google when you search
for entities such as people, places, organizations, or things. You can compare the
knowledge panel to a person's personal identification card. Like an ID, the
knowledge panel consolidates essential and official information regarding a
business or brand. Knowledge panels are automatically generated, and
information that appears in a knowledge panel comes from various sources across
the web.
Below is an example that shows the details listed on the knowledge panel for
Coursera.

As displayed in the image, business details can include a(n):

 Official website link
 Site logo
 Brand industry
 Brand description
 Social profile links
Including this information makes it easier for searchers to identify a brand’s official
site to find the exact information they were seeking.

Set up business details on Google

The following steps detail the process of setting up a brand’s business details for a
knowledge panel on Google.
Step 1: Create a Google Business Profile
For business owners who run local brick-and-mortar businesses, like a restaurant
or shopping retailer, the first step in establishing business details is to create a
Google Business Profile.
Google Business Profile is a free tool that allows local businesses to tailor how
their business information appears on Google Search and Google Maps. Owners
can post hours of operation, their products and services, accept online orders, and
more. You can create and manage a business profile directly in Google Maps or
Google Search.

Step 2: Verify website ownership

The next step is verifying the website ownership in Google’s Search Console.
Search Console is a powerful Google tool that helps you better understand how
your website is performing, allows you to optimize visibility of your websites, and
provides other services.
You’ll learn more about services the Search Console offers in a later section of the
course.
Verifying your website through Search Console is important because it ensures that
you have control over how your website is presented on Google and have access to
sensitive Google Search data for your site.

Step 3: Update the website’s Google knowledge panel

After you're verified as an official representative, you can sign in to the Gmail
account associated with the entity that you represent and update your Google
knowledge panel information.
Updating these details overrides the publicly available information that Google
algorithms automatically find and inputs for you.

Step 4: Add structured data for rich results

Rich results are Google Search results that go beyond the standard blue link. They
can include carousels, images, or other non-textual elements. As a digital marketer,
you’ll want to make sure your website is eligible for rich results because it helps
your business stand out.
To help your business become eligible for rich results, you must add structured
data. Structured data is a standardized format for providing information about a
page and classifying the page content. It should be noted that adding structured
data doesn’t automatically ensure that rich results will be added to your business’s
search results page.
You can learn more about creating structured data by reading a document on the
Google Search Central website titled Understand how structured data works.
Once you’ve added structured data, you can check its accuracy by entering your
website’s URL on Google’s Rich Results Test page.

Step 5: Highlight customer support methods

Be sure to include ways that your website’s visitors can access helpful information
or reach you for customer support needs. These include but are not limited to your
contact number and email address.

Key takeaways
Displaying accurate information about your business helps you get recognized by
search engine users quickly. Getting noticed helps direct your audience to your
website to potentially complete a desired goal, such as making a purchase.
Learn more: Add Business Details to Google
As you learned in a video, Google Search Console is a tool that helps you better
understand how your website is performing. It helps you manage your website’s
presence in search engines and make it easier for more people to find your site.
This reading will introduce a few of the tools and reports available in Google
Search Console.

Sitemaps report
The sitemaps report in Google Search Console allows you to submit or update your
sitemap, which is a file that provides information about the pages, videos, and
other files on a site, and the relationships between them.

A sitemap helps Google find the most important pages on your website that you
would like to appear in search results. It also helps Google understand the
relationship between the pages on your site.

You might not need to submit a sitemap if your site is small and already being
crawled by Google. However, submitting a sitemap can help Google improve how it
crawls your website—especially if your website is larger and includes more than
500 pages.
Some website platforms, such as WordPress, Wix, and Blogger, automatically
create a sitemap for you and make it available to search engines. In that case, you
don’t need to submit a sitemap. If your website platform doesn’t automatically
create and submit a sitemap, you can use the sitemaps report in Google Search
Console to do so.

The sitemaps report allows you to find out which sitemaps have been submitted
for your website, access sitemap statistics, and monitor any errors that Google may
have encountered when processing your sitemaps.

URL inspection tool

Another tool that Google Search Console offers is the URL inspection tool, which
provides detailed crawl, index, and serving information about your pages, directly
from the Google index. It allows you to access the information that the Google
index has about a specific URL on your website. It also allows you to test a live page
on your website.

The URL Inspection tool reveals errors on the page, such as HTML or JavaScript
code errors. It also reveals other technical information. This tool is helpful for
troubleshooting any crawling errors that Google encountered on your site. It’s also
helpful for fixing and retesting a page with errors.

Change of address
If you move your website from one domain to another, you’ll need to let Google
know by using the change of address tool. For example, if your website address
was [Link] and you later changed it to [Link], you would use this tool
to let Google know about the change. Then Google can migrate your Google Search
results from your old website to your new one.

Removals tool
In some cases, you may want to prevent a webpage on your site from appearing in
Google Search. A temporary fix is to use the removals tool, which allows you to
temporarily block pages from Google Search results and manage SafeSearch
filtering.

The temporary block will only last about 6 months, however. To permanently
remove the page from Google Search results, you will need to do one of the
following:

Remove or update the page

Block access to the content by requiring a password or using another method to

restrict access

Add code to the page that tells search engines not to index it (this method is less
secure than the other two methods)

Key takeaways
Google Search Console provides tools to help you monitor and manage your
website’s performance. Using these tools can help more people find your website.

Resources for more information

Get an overview of the tools and reports available in Google Search Console.

Google Search Console: Read about the tools and reports available in Google
Search Console.
Every Google Ads campaign requires a bid strategy, and determining the correct
strategy is key for the success of a business campaign with Google Ads.

This reading will discuss bid strategies and the different types you can choose
from.

What is a bid strategy?

A bid strategy is designed to help achieve campaign goals based on budget.
The most basic bid strategy is Manual Cost Per Click (CPC). With manual CPC
bidding, you set your own maximum cost per click for your ads.

Alternatively, automated bidding strategies allow Google Ads to automatically set

bids for your ads based on an ad’s likelihood to result in a click or conversion that
helps you achieve a specific goal.

What is Smart Bidding?

Smart bidding is a subset of automated bidding strategies. These strategies use
machine learning to optimize for conversions or conversion value with each
auction, and they factor in a wide range of auction-time signals such as the user’s
device, location, time of day, remarketing list, language, and operating system.
This means that based on these factors and the context of every search, the bid
strategy automatically determines whether or not to bid, and how much to bid.

Types of bid strategies

Bid Strategy

Definition

Goal

Maximize conversion value

This bid strategy uses advanced machine learning to automatically optimize and
set bids. It also offers auction-time bidding capabilities that tailor bids for each
auction.

Increase business value

Target ROAS

An optional target to maximize conversion value, this bid strategy analyzes and
intelligently predicts the value of a potential conversion every time a user searches
for products or services you’re advertising. Then, it automatically adjusts your bids
for these searches to maximize your return on them. Ideally, this means if the bid
strategy determines that a user search is likely to generate a conversion with high
value, Target ROAS will bid high on that search.

Increase business value

Maximize conversions

Maximize conversions automatically sets bids to help get the most conversions for
your campaign within your budget.

Increase sales or leads

Maximize clicks

This automated bid strategy sets your bids to help get as many clicks as possible
within your budget.

Increase website visitors

Target CPA

Target CPA is an optional target to maximize conversions. This bid strategy sets
bids for you to get as many conversions (customer actions) as possible. When you
create the Target CPA (target cost per action) bid strategy, you set an average cost
you’d like to pay for each conversion.

Increase sales or leads

Target impression share

There are 3 options for the target impression share strategy, depending on where
you want your ads to show: on the absolute top of the page, on the top of the page,
or anywhere on the page of Google search results. Google Ads automatically sets
your bids to show your ad, based on your placement settings.

Increase awareness and visibility

Cost per 1000 impressions (CPM)

With this bid strategy, you’ll pay based on the number of impressions (times your
ads are shown) that you receive on YouTube or the Google Display Network.

Increase awareness and visibility

Cost per view (CPV)

This is the default bid strategy to set the amount you’ll pay for video ads in Google
Ads. With CPV bidding, you’ll pay for video views or interactions.

Increase awareness and visibility

Selecting a bid strategy

While creating a campaign, Google Ads guides you to choose a bid strategy by
asking a series of questions to determine your campaign goals. This is useful if you
are unfamiliar with specific bidding strategies.

However, the website offers the option to select a bid strategy directly. Once
selected, users can choose specific bidding strategies from a drop-down menu.

Google Ads bidding options during the campaign creating process.

Google Ads bidding options during the campaign creating process.
Key Takeaways
With so many to choose from, bid strategies can sometimes be confusing to
navigate. To make your decision easier, be sure to identify what your goal is first
and then match it to the appropriate strategy. Choosing the right strategy often
takes trial and error, so don’t worry if your selected strategy doesn’t work initially.
You can always apply what you’ve learned from previous attempts to your next
campaign.

Resources for more information

Choosing the right bid strategy is important for the success of your campaign. For
more information on bidding strategies, check out the resources below.

Determine a bid strategy based on your goals

Learn more about automated bidding.

In a video, you learned about Google Ads, campaigns, and Ad Groups. This reading
will help you learn how these items are organized within Google Ads.

Google Ads is Google’s online advertising program. Through Google Ads, you can
create online ads to reach people exactly when they’re interested in the products
and services that you offer.

The Google Ads user dashboard featuring existing campaigns.

Google Ads account structure
Google Ads account structure
The following items are presented in the order that you will experience them while
creating a campaign in Google Ads. Refer to the definitions as you follow the
diagram above.

Google Ads: Google’s online advertising program. Through Google Ads, you can
create online ads to reach people exactly when they’re interested in the products
and services that you offer.

Campaign: A plan of action for how a set of one or more ad groups that share a
budget, location targeting, and other settings will be distributed online. Campaigns
are often used to organize categories of products or services that you offer.

Average daily budget: The average amount that you set for each ad campaign on a
per-day basis. It specifies roughly how much you are comfortable spending each
day over the course of the month.
Ad Groups: The way to organize and target ads into themed groups of keywords.
Each of your campaigns is made up of one or more ad groups.

Ad Formats: Text, videos, images, digital content ads, and more that appear
alongside used to promote products and services with Google Ads.

Bids: The amount you’re willing to spend each time a potential customer clicks
your ad or calls you is known as a bid.

Keywords: These are words or phrases describing your product or service that you
choose to help determine when and where your ad can appear. Advertisers bid
against each other, and ads are ranked based on how high you bid and how
relevant your ad is, among other factors.
🔥🔥🔥
Previously, you learned about Google Ads and the different types of Google Ad
formats. This reading will provide an overview of the seven steps to creating a
responsive search ad based on your stated objective.

These instructions are based on the Google Ad interface, which offers guidance
along the way.

You can opt to create a campaign without defining a goal for guidance by selecting
the option when presented on screen.

Seven steps to create a Google Ad campaign

1. Define your campaign goal

Your goal is what you want to achieve with the ad. There are seven campaign
objectives to choose from:

Sales: drives sales online, in app, by phone or in store

Leads: brings in leads and other conversions by encouraging customers to take

action
Website traffic: encourages people to visit your website

Product and brand consideration: encourages people to explore your products or

services

Brand awareness and reach: reaches a broad audience and builds awareness

App promotion: increases installs or promotions for your mobile app

Local store visits and promotions: encourages customers to visit a physical store
location

The Google Ads interface showing where users are prompted to select from eight
options under “Choose your objective.”
2. Choose the campaign type

Next, choose your campaign type. Options include:

Search

Performance Max

Display

Shopping

Video

Discovery

The Google Ads interface. Users are prompted to select from six options under
“select a campaign type.”
The Google Ads interface. Users are prompted to select from six options under
“select a campaign type.”
3. Set a budget

Once you select your campaign, move on to set your budget. For more information
on setting your budget, visit the Google Ads Help Center.

The Google Ads interface is shown where users are prompted to enter an average
daily budget amount for their campaign.
4. Choose your bidding strategy

Refer to a previous reading on bidding strategies to review the different types.

The Google Ads interface is shown where users are prompted to select from a drop
down menu of bidding strategies.
5. Select your targeting

Targeting helps define how narrow or broad your audience targeting will be. Your
target categories include:

Locations

Languages

Audience segments

The Google Ads interface is shown where users are prompted to select targets and
languages for their campaign.
6. Create your ad

To create your ad, input information to determine how your ad will appear online.
This includes:

Descriptions
Final URL

Display path

Headlines

Extensions

Be sure to include at least one of your keywords in your headlines, and create
headlines that are relevant to the keywords you’re targeting. Also, use the ad
strength indicator as a guide to improving the effectiveness of your ads. Ad
strength provides you with feedback to help you focus on providing the right
messages to your customers.

The Google Ads interface is shown where users are prompted to enter an Ad group
name and keywords for their campaign.
7. Finalize your ad
Once you are ready, finalize your ad by adding your final URL and display path. Use
the preview window on the screen to check how your ad will appear online.

The Google Ads interface is shown where users are prompted to review and finalize
details for their campaign.
Resources for more information
For more information on creating a google ads campaign, visit the following
resources:

Create effective Search ads: This Google Help center article provides information
for optimizing ads and messaging on Google Search.
🔥🔥🔥🔥

With millions of videos uploaded daily, the video sharing platform YouTube
offers a great opportunity for brands to reach a variety of audiences all over
the world.
In this reading, you will learn about advertising on YouTube, including the
benefits and the different ad formats offered.

Display ads vs. TrueView video ads

Before you learn about the benefits of advertising on YouTube, it’s important
to know that there are two different types of ads on YouTube: Display ads and
TrueView Ads. This can sometimes be confusing as they are both often
referred to as just “YouTube ads.”

Display ads

As you have learned, Display ads are visual ad formats placed on websites or
applications. They are static ads created in Google Ads using Display
campaigns. Think of them as digital billboards. Display ads use the Google
Display Network, which is a group of websites, videos, and apps where ads
can appear. When on YouTube, these ads appear next to the streaming video.
Revisit an earlier lesson on Display ads for further information.

A YouTube video page shows the placement of a display ad to the right of the
video player.

TrueView Video Ads

Alternatively, TrueView ads are video advertisements. They are called

“trueview” because brands only pay when someone chooses to view them.
While these ads are also managed in Google Ads, advertisers must first
upload their videos to their YouTube channel before creating a campaign.

After uploading your video ad to your brand’s channel, there are a variety of
different ad formats to choose from. These include: skippable video ads, non-
skippable video ads, overlay ads, and in-feed ads.

Skippable video ads allow viewers to skip ads after five seconds.
A YouTube video page shows the placement of a skippable video ad in the
media player represented by a skip symbol.

Non-skippable video ads must be watched before a video can be viewed.

They run between 15 to 20 seconds, depending on regional standards. A
subcategory of non-skippable ads is bumper [Link] ads run for just six
seconds.

A YouTube video page shows the placement of a non-skippable video ad in

the media player represented by a clock symbol.

Overlay image or text ads appear on the lower 20% portion of a video. Unlike
the other TrueView ads, overlay ads can only be viewed on computers and
not mobile devices.

A YouTube video page shows the placement of an overlay ad at the bottom of

the media player.

In-display ads, also known as TrueView Discovery Ads, appear in the YouTube
search results for video queries with related topics. They include a video
thumbnail, title, and description. Think of them as Search ads with videos
instead of webpage links. When selected, they can be watched in full—
independent from other videos.

A YouTube video page shows the placement of an in-display ad in the

suggested videos section.

Benefits of advertising on YouTube

There are a number of reasons why advertising on YouTube is beneficial to

most brands. The most recognized reasons are cost, reach, and
effectiveness.

YouTube ads are inexpensive

While the production cost of video ads can differ from company to company,
it is relatively cheap to run YouTube ads. YouTube ads perform on a pay-per-
view, or a pay-per-click model. This means that brands don’t have to pay for
an ad until a specific action is taken.
On average, these ads cost between $0.10 to $0.30 (USD) per view or action.
The exact cost depends on factors such as watch time, audience targeting,
and campaign objective. The low cost is helpful for brands with small
budgets or brands with larger budgets seeking to produce many ads.

YouTube ads help you reach your audience

YouTube gives brands the opportunity to reach a variety of audiences who

are searching for their brand or topics related to their products. Brands can
target customers using specific topics, keywords, or demographics.

Your brand’s video can also appear in the suggested video feed of another
video. This means your ads can appear on popular videos that will be seen
by a relevant audience.

YouTube ads are effective

With a larger audience, you have more opportunities for viewers to interact
with your brand. In fact, people who view an ad are 10 times more likely to
engage with the brand behind the ad. This is great for brand awareness and
driving sales.

Key takeaways

YouTube is a powerful tool for brand marketers trying to get noticed by

relevant audiences. Its capabilities and low cost make it a promising tool to
meet your brand needs.

Resources for more information

Explore the steps for uploading a trueview video ad campaign.

🔥🔥🔥🔥
In a previous video, you learned that one type of display ad is a responsive
display ad. This reading will explain what responsive display ads are and how
to create them.

Create a responsive display ad

Responsive display ads are the default ad type that appear across the Google
Display Network, which is a group of more than two million websites, videos,
and apps.

Responsive display ads are considered “responsive” because they

automatically adjust their size, appearance, and format to fit available ad
spaces. Responsive display ads can show any sized text or image. They can
even be shown as “native” ads, meaning they can blend into the font and
feel of the publisher’s site.

Getting started

Before you upload your assets, you’ll need to complete, gather, or establish
the following items related to your brand:

Business name: This is the official name of your business or brand. Ensure
your company name is spelled and capitalized correctly, as your ad will
contain exactly what you provide.

Display URL: This is the page the ad will direct customers to once selected.
Google’s policy is that your landing page and final URL must share the same
domain as your display URL.

Display campaign: Before running a responsive display ad, you need to

create a display campaign in Google Ads. You learned previously that your
campaign is the base of your ads. Here, you will set your budget, bid
strategy, ad groups, target audience, etc.
To get started:

Log into your Google Ads account.

Select the display campaign you want to create ads for.

Select Ads & extensions.

Select Ads.

Select Responsive display ad.

Upload assets

Responsive display ads are an asset-based ad type, which means that you
can create them by uploading various assets. When setting up a new
responsive display ad in Google Ads, you can upload the following assets
when prompted:

Images: These will appear as the primary element of your ad. Your images
should:

Be high quality and have a strong visual focus

Make the product or service the focus of the image

Support the main point of the ad

Have a background that suits the product

Not overlay a logo, text, or buttons

Not be blurry, skewed, or use excessive filters

You can upload between 5 to 15 images from your computer, or use a free
library of stock images provided by Google. You can also scan your website
for relevant images to choose from using a Google Ads feature.

Logos: Your brand’s official logo will also appear in the ad. It should be a 1:1
ratio image, or square. The recommended size is 1200 x 1200 px.

Short Headlines: You’ll be asked to write at least five short headlines. These
are the first lines of your ads and will appear in tight ad spaces where long
headlines don’t fit. Short headlines may appear with or without your
description and are 30 characters or fewer.

Long Headlines: You’ll be prompted to write one long headline. These will
appear in larger or longer ads and are 90 characters or fewer. Both short
and long headlines should:

Be written in sentence case (i.e., only capitalize the first letter of the first
word, except for proper nouns)

Incorporate unique and compelling copy that demonstrates your brand or

product’s value

Stand alone without the support of a description

Describe any promotions or special offers

Tell customers what to do

Descriptions: You’ll need to write up to five distinct descriptions about your

product or service that encourages your audience to act. Each description
has a 90 character limit. Your descriptions should:

Be written in sentence case

Complement your headlines

Explain your product or service’s value clearly

Include unique selling points, prices, and promotions

Explain in more detail why customers should trust your brand

List ratings and reviews

Videos: Videos are an optional asset. If you choose to include videos, they
must be a length of 30 seconds or fewer, and the video must be uploaded to
YouTube before creating you’re ad.

Once you enter your assets and publish your ad, Google Ads will
automatically generate the best ad combinations for available spaces based
on what you upload, so upload as many assets as you can, if applicable. The
more assets you have, the more opportunities Google Ads have to fit your
ads in different spaces.
Be sure that you keep accessibility in mind when creating your ads. Viewers
with low vision may not be able to read your ads without the assistance of a
screen reader, which is an assistive technology that reads aloud the
description of text and images. For this reason, keep your headlines and
descriptions straightforward and descriptive.

Review performance

Over time, Google uses machine learning to determine which combination of

assets work best for your marketing needs and begins to only show the most
effective versions of the ad.

Approximately two weeks after launching your ad, Google Ads will collect
enough data for you to view the best-performing versions.

If certain responsive display ads are not performing well, you can identify if
there is a correlation between the ads and the assets used in those ads.
Change out the assets that are receiving little to no traffic for ones you think
would achieve more success.

Key takeaways

Responsive display ads rely on the assets you choose. Put time into selecting
the best quality images and the most thoughtful headlines and descriptions.

Resources for more information

Get a detailed overview of creating responsive ads:

Create effective responsive display ads: Read more about creating

responsive display ads from Google Ads Help.