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4 min read
Opinion

A-Z of marketing: Pay Per Click advertising.

Pay Per Click (PPC) is a way of advertising your business in a prime position on search engine websites

When a user types in something related to your business that matches the selection of keywords used, your advert will appear at the top, or to the right of, the search results. When someone clicks on your advert, you pay the advertiser a set amount of money. Although it does cost, it’s a great way of getting your business in the spotlight and knowing that the people that click on the advert are the people that are going to be interested in your products and services.

What you need to know about PPC

  • You, the advertiser, have control over where your ad is placed and who it should be targeting. When the ad is clicked, traffic is sent to your website and you pay for the privilege.
  • You must choose your own keywords and then place bids on them when setting up a PPC campaign. The search engines will then use them accordingly.

With this in mind, it’s obvious how important it is to get the details of the ad right; that is the keywords used, audience parameters set and the copy in the advert itself. One slip up and you could be advertising to an audience that will have no interest in what you do at all which could lead to a chunk of your marketing budget being wasted. The whole point of PPC is to get more traffic and increase your revenue but if a campaign is managed in the wrong way, this isn’t going to happen.

When it comes to PPC, you need to bear these things in mind:

  • What are you willing to spend? It’s impossible to know how well a PPC campaign will work for you but you can estimate what PPC is worth to your business. For example, if two clicks out of every fifty purchase something from you, how much per click are you willing spend?
  • Once you know what you can afford, you can set a daily budget. The beauty of PPC is that your ad will appear until you’ve reached your budget so you never spend more than you want to. It’s completely within your control.
  • You must have exceptional SEO on your website. PPC ads are still subject to ranking so when you choose your keywords it’s going to be no use if they’re not keywords that appear on your website. Be thorough in your research into the best keywords for your business. See our previous blog on keywords.
  • Your ad will include a title, short description, and URL, so make sure you make them count because that’s all that the viewers will see. Ask yourself, ‘Why would someone click on this?’

In essence, you shouldn’t expect to use PPC as way out of all the hard work of building your organic rankings. PPC will only result in increased revenue if it is used properly. The combination of your website, the way you set up the campaign, and the reaction from searchers are all vital in the success of PPC.

If you’re unsure of how PPC will work for your business, we can help. As a Google Partner, we are well placed to help you get your Google rankings and PPC campaigns on track.