You will be able to write responsive search ad headlines and descriptions that match a keyword theme.
Type a common search into Google, say tuition centre Tampines, and look at the ads at the top. Some echo your words back to you and tell you something useful straight away. Others say Quality Education Since 2005 or Welcome To Our Learning Centre, which could appear on any search for anything. You already know which ones you would click. So does Google, and lesson 1.1, The highest bid does not always win, showed why that affects both position and price.
Search ad copy has a narrower job than any other ad. The person has told you what they want. Your text needs to show that you have it, and why you over the others on the page.
On Google Search, the standard text ad is the responsive search ad. Instead of writing one fixed ad, you supply a set of headlines and a set of descriptions. Google then mixes them, showing a few headlines and a description or two at a time, in different combinations, and learns which combinations work best for which searches.
That has one big consequence for writing. You cannot predict which headlines will appear together, so each one must make sense on its own and alongside any of the others. A headline that only works as the second half of a sentence, or that repeats another headline word for word, will produce awkward or repetitive ads.
You can pin a headline to a position if one line must always appear, such as a legal disclaimer. Google's help pages explain that pinning reduces the combinations it can test, so use it only where you need it.
Google limits how many headlines and descriptions you can add, and how many characters each can hold. Those limits have changed before, so check the current numbers in Google Ads help as you write rather than relying on a number you read somewhere.
The most reliable headline uses the words the searcher typed. If an ad group targets searches about maths tuition in Tampines, at least one or two headlines should say maths tuition in Tampines, or something very close. When the ad echoes the search, the searcher sees at a glance that it is relevant, and Google's systems tend to rate it as relevant too.
The other headlines give reasons to choose you. Good reasons are specific: a location or a nearby MRT station, a price or a free trial, speed such as same-day replies or classes starting this week, a detail like small classes or evening slots. Vague claims such as quality, trusted or the best do not count as reasons, because every competitor can say them.
Here is part of what Priya wrote for her ad group on P5 maths tuition in Tampines. Each line stands alone.
P5 maths tuition in Tampines Free trial class for P5 maths Max 6 students per class Evening classes until 9pm 5 minutes from Tampines MRT Homework done in class, not at home Book a trial online in 2 minutes Classes built around the P5 syllabus
Any two or three of those, in any order, make a sensible ad. None of them would fit a search for, say, secondary chemistry, which is how it should be. The class size and hours come from her own centre's details, so every claim is one she can stand behind.
Descriptions do the same job at greater length. One might expand on the trial: try one class free, see how your child finds it, then decide. Another might deal with a worry: we send parents a short note each week on what was covered.
Google lets you add extra pieces of information to your ads, which it calls assets. Sitelinks add links to other pages, such as timetable, fees or location. Callouts add short phrases such as free parking or no registration fee. There are others for phone numbers, locations, prices and more.
Assets make your ad larger and more useful on the page, and Google lists the expected impact of assets as one of the things that feed Ad Rank. Adding the relevant ones is one of the cheapest improvements you can make. Google decides when to show them, so add the ones that apply and let the system choose.
When you have written your set, read the headlines in random pairs. Ask whether each pair makes sense together, and whether any pair repeats itself. Read the descriptions after each pair. Then check the whole set against the landing page, because every promise in a headline should be visible on the page it leads to. Lesson 5.4, The landing page finishes the ad's job, goes into that check.
Google's ad editor also shows a rating of how varied and relevant your headlines are, with suggestions. Treat it as a prompt rather than a target.
Pick one keyword theme from your own business. In the activity below you will write a full set of headlines and descriptions for it, each able to stand on its own.
Write eight headlines and three descriptions for one keyword theme, each one able to stand alone.
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