Pay Per Click marketing (PPC), is a valuable strategy to get customers to visit your website.
In fact, one of the biggest challenges for most online businesses, is to get enough traffic to their websites. Indeed, website traffic is the number of users visiting your website. Even more, is it important that your website has enough visitors, because the more visits to your website, the more potential customers you will be able to engage. This may result in an increase in conversion rates, more sales, a better brand awareness, and targeted lead generation, for your business.
More about Pay Per Click Marketing
Pay Per Click marketing is one of the tactics of search marketing. The other search marketing tactic is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) that you need not to pay for. However, to get results with SEO takes a lot of time and plenty of good quality content to create and publish. On the other hand, may PPC deliver quicker results, but at a cost.
PPC Search Engine Marketing
The abbreviation PPC stands for Pay Per Click – which is a popular advertising technique on the Internet. PPC ads can be found on websites, advertising networks, and on search engines. It involves sponsored links that are typically in the form of text ads. For that reason, PPC ads are usually placed close to search results. Also, an advertiser pays a particular amount when visitors click on its links or banners to reach a landing page.
How does PPC works?
With Pay Per Click advertising, you need pay to a lot of money to be on the first page of the search engine result page (SERP – e.g. Google). In fact, you must pay more than your competitors to achieve that…
Essentially, PPC advertising is all about bidding for the top or leading position on search engine results and listings. And that will cost you money, because advertisers bid on keywords and keyword phrases that are relevant to their products or services. As a result, the higher the bid, the higher the spot of the ad on the result page.
Ads that are displayed on the first result page will get more the people to see the ad (and click on it). Indeed, Google monitors the clicks on your ad and you will pay the bidding price every time a visitor clicks on it.
PPC advertising is also known under the following names/variations:
· P P P – Pay per placement
· P P F -Pay per performance
· Pay per ranking
· Pay per position
· Cost per click (CPC)
What is the procedure to follow when you want to place a PPC Search Engine Marketing ad?
- Setting up an account and/or deposit funds.
- Creating a keyword list.
- Choosing (and setting up) an account with a PPC search engine.
- Bidding on the ad placement, including the search result words or phrases.
- Writing out an ad copy.
- Setting up the ‘landing pages’ for your ads.
- Placing the advertisement in the search engine.
What are the benefits of PPC Search Engine Marketing?
There are many benefits to Pay Per Click advertising, making it an effective way of promoting a business ‘online’. Some of them are listed below:
· Get launched immediately. PPC advertisements are implemented very quickly – they can go ‘online’ within an hour after winning the bid and paying for it.
· Obtain specific, pre-qualified, and quality traffic. PPC provides you with a quality or a well-targeted traffic. In fact, visitors are narrowed down into ‘qualified’ people who are actually looking for specific products and/or services that you offer – those who are more likely to become a ‘lead’ (a convert) and complete a transaction (either by buying your product or subscribing to the service that you are offering.
· Widen your reach. PPC advertising provides additional traffic to your site, aside from the natural or “organic” search engines.
· Track your investment. PPC advertising makes use of a tracking system that will determine exactly who comes to the website and what they do once they arrive – the length of their stay on the site and the number of pages (including the actual pages) that they view. Even more, there are valuable tools in determining statistics such as return on investment (ROI), acquisition cost-per-visitor, and conversion rates (the percentage of visitors who are converted into customers or leads).
Factors to consider when planning your Pay Per Click marketing campaign:
- Know your product. Take an inventory of the product and/or services that you have to offer (before anything else).
- Stay within the budget. Determine your daily or monthly budget; and stay with it. This means keeping your budget in mind, avoiding bidding wars if possible.
- Bid just right. Know how to bid right – a bid that is too high can exhaust all of your money, while a bid that is too low can make you lose that spot.
- Watch the bottom line. Measure your profit margin against your spending or expenses. For that reason you need to know when to stop and terminate your PPC program.
- Find the right keywords. Decide which keyword phrases to opt and bid for. Always do keyword research, either by actually looking at existing search terms or with the use of online keyword suggestion tools. By all means, focus on specific keywords, not on general ones.
- Write effective ads. A good PPC ad is that which can persuade and move a searcher.
There are several approaches to create effective ads:
· Discount offers
· Testimonials
· Celebrity/famous endorsers
· Money-back guarantees
· Free trials or sample offers
· Freebies
· Reverse psychology
· Major benefits (“Lose weight”)
· Direct instructions (“Click here”)
- Maintain a professional-looking site. Update your website regularly and check it for spelling and grammatical errors. Even more, there should be no broken links or images. In fact, the website should be simple – designed in such a way that it will be easy for visitors to navigate and load. Also, remember to include contact details to create a good impression among potential customers.
Concluding
If done properly, PPC advertising can be an effective marketing tool that will maximize the return on your investment.
Sam Carr writing in adzooma concurs: “If you’re a small business looking for ways to increase the amount of traffic and leads you get on your website, then PPC marketing is something you should consider.”
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