SEO can take months to show results. The Google sandbox alone can delay optimisation issues by six to eight months. So, what can you do to get traffic while you wait? PPC [“PPC”] campaigns fill the time gap. This article talks about the basics of PPC advertising.
What Is A pay-per-click?
A PPC SE allows you to bid for locating in search results. Search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL and most others bolster their organic search results with sponsor ads. If you search on Google, links in blue across the top and the small ads down the right side of the search results are PPC listings. In one form or another, similar listings appear on every major search engine.
How Does It Work?
When you use a PPC, you’ll bid for placement in the search results under specific keywords. Rather than optimizing your site to appear high in the listings, you simple pay for the position. While this may sound fantastic, keep in mind you’re paying for the listing and have to watch the return on investment closely.
To get started, you must open an account with the PPC in question. The two largest PPCs are Google Adwords and Overture. You’ll need to register with the PPC, provide a credit card number and, depending on the PPC, deposit money into the account. Next, make ads with a title, body text and link to the landing page of your site. The title of each ad should correspond to a particular keyword you want to promote. If at all possible, include the keyword in the actual title. Finally, you will be questioned to bid on placement in the search results.
Bidding for placement isn’t as simple as it my sound. Ideally, your ad should be in the top 3, but never below the 10th position. This has to be balanced, but, by the return on investment of the campaign. If you sell a product that produces a ten dollar profit per sale, you likely can’t afford to pay $.90 per click. If your site converts 1 visitor out of every 100 into a sale, you will spend $90 for every sale. Obviously, that is going to work out very well. The one caveat to this situation is a business with reoccurring revenue.
If you site charges clients a reoccurring monthly fee, you can bid in excess of your immediate profit margin. To do this safely, you must determine how long the average customer will stay on your site. For example, if you make a $10 profit per month and the average customer pays for 5 months, the total profit is $50. In this situation, you can spend $20 or $30 to obtain a customer and still turn a profit. To properly manage a PPC campaign for a reoccurring charge site, you must recalculate the profit per customer ever week to protect yourself.
PPC Cons
Why not just use a PPC campaign instead of pursuing search engine optimization? There are a number of reasons. First, you are paying for each click with a PPC, which requires a budget and may impact your cash flow. Second, PPC bidding is competitive and that translates into higher costs, so much so that a profit may be hard to make. Third, many people simply do not click on PPC ads with the figure being as high as 20 percent. Fourth, you run the risk of having people click on your ads with no intention of buying, whether they are just browsing or are trying to exhaust your advertising budget.
PPCs certainly have a place in the online marketing field. Manage your campaigns with an eye for detail and you should fine.