The web is a primary marketing tool for many small companies. Ranking high in the search engines is increasingly more competitive; so many companies are considering adding Pay Per Click advertising to their marketing mix.
Pay Per Click ads are the text ads called “Sponsored Links” you see in boxes at the top and right column of many search engines and other websites. When a user types in a certain keyword or phrase, companies can bid to have their ad displayed there.
This is extremely useful when you want a particular keyword to display your website on the first page of search results, especially if you’ve been struggling against a lot of competition for a particular phrase, or if you have a new website that isn’t ranking well on the search engines just yet.
The most popular Pay Per Click opportunity is through Google Adwords, which displays results on Google, AOL, Earthlink, and Ask Jeeves. I’ve seen reports from web owners who state that more than 60% of their traffic results from Google Adwords alone.
Here’s how it works:
- First you set up an account with Google Adwords. You can instruct Google to display your ad internationally to searchers worldwide, or regionally, down to a portion of a state if you are a local company. So if you want to do business only in a certain location, you can pinpoint the area that searches will see your ad.
- Next, you determine how much money you want to budget for each day, create your text ad, and link to your site. You can create multiple, rotating ads, and track which result in the most clicks.
- Finally, you create a keyword list of all the phrases that will trigger your ad to be displayed, and place a top click-through bid amount for each keyword. Google will suggest how much you need to bid for top placement.
This amount will vary depending upon the competition for your chosen keyword or phrase. Google also has a keyword tool to help you find more keywords to add to your list.
That’s about it. Your ad is up and running in minutes, and you can start to track the results, and adjust your ad accordingly. You might find that your per click amount is set too high, so that you deplete your daily budget too quickly. Or you might find that certain keywords get a lot of impressions, but few clicks, which means that your ad content might need tweaking.
Adwords are also a great way to “test run” keywords to determine how popular they are, relative to your site’s content. When you identify these keywords, you can use more of them on your site to improve your ranking on the search engines.
Finally, because you can try Adwords for a small investment and turn them off whenever you want, it’s easy to test the waters in Pay Per Click Advertising, or get a traffic boost during times of the year that are important for your particular business.
If you have any questions about this or other topics, please
feel free to call or send me an email.
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