Pay Per Click Advertising - Another Search Engine Strategy to Consider

Organic SEO and search engine marketing (SEM, also referred to as pay-per-click advertising or PPC) each has its own distinct advantages. The search results that appear in the right column and often the top two to three spots on a search results page are labeled "sponsored links." Those are paid advertisements and the sponsor pays each time a link is clicked.

Pay-per-click provides businesses with a quick way to get higher rankings on search results and can be used simultaneously with organic SEO as you continue building your presence on the web. If you need immediate exposure for your business in the search engines, you can use pay-per-click as an advertising alternative and a supplement to your link building efforts.

However, you should also know what to avoid in pay-per-click advertising so that you don’t wind up spending advertising dollars that fail to provide a good return on your investment. Here are a few key items to be aware of:

• Research your keywords effectively to make sure you are using the best keywords for your business. Highly competitive keywords can end up quickly consuming your budget with little return. Also, targeting too many keywords that do not draw high-quality traffic to your site can also be very costly.
• Make sure you’ve carefully identified your target market, their needs and their triggers so that you can pull together the ideal combination of call-to-action, keywords and ad copy.
• Incorporate your keywords and compelling benefits in your ad headlines, copy and display URLs. • Set your budget and your bids, monitor your bid amounts, and make adjustments to keywords and bids on a daily basis until your campaign is running with predictable performance.
• Monitor the performance (click-through rate, cost per click, conversions) of your keywords and periodically replace low-performing terms with new keyword phrases to test.
• Make sure your landing page has a clear and compelling call to action. Apart from direct online sales, common b2b calls to action include whitepaper downloads, reports, ebooks, webinar registrations, subscriptions and free trials. Another common strategy is to provide a special offer that is time-sensitive and compelling for people to act as part of their PPC campaign, which can help increase conversion rate and ROI.
• Analyze your results and tweak all aspects of your campaign accordingly.

These tips will help you avoid the common pitfalls and optimize your PPC budget. If you are new to PPC advertising, do some research before jumping in. Then start with a small budget and consider using the expertise of a web marketing firm that provides PPC management services to ensure you avoid the potential pitfalls of pay-per-click advertising. That experience and coaching will enable you to manage the next campaign on your own if you choose.