A quick guide to pay per click (PPC) search advertising, by David White and Chris Camacho, Weboptimiser (www.weboptimiser.com
In recent years, the number of consumers using online search has grown rapidly and many companies are moving towards Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising.
PPC advertising can be very rewarding, but similarly it can also be extremely expensive; thus making it essential for you to conduct extensive research and do the basic math to justify it.
What is PPC?
PPC advertising is primarily concerned in identifying the keywords or phrases that relate most to your product or service and entering into a bidding auction for them. Amongst other factors, the amount you are willing to pay per click will determine where your advert is positioned in the sponsored link section of the search engine.
Why does Search Marketing make sense for SME’s?
Search engine marketing allows SME’s to widen their reach and explore new avenues. Traditionally, SME's have relied on offline advertising such as direct mail and newspaper classifieds. However, many SME's are beginning to realise the importance of online advertising and in particular, search engine marketing.
Furthermore, the big players in online search such as Google and Yahoo have been working on ways to bring SME’s, particularly local businesses, into the ranks of their advertisers. Google offer advertisers the opportunity to target ads by region. Yahoo! Search Marketing offers local search that involves targeting by radius.
Through PPC you can target potential customers at the exact time they are searching for your product or service. Increasingly, companies are moving their budgets from conventional media to search advertising in an attempt to capitalise on the online market because there are few other avenues that are as profitable or accountable.
Who should you advertise with?
There are hundreds of PPC search engines in operation, but very few will actually deliver your site useful traffic. Google, Yahoo! and MSN are the main players in the market and I would recommend that companies focus on targeting these engines.
Google are market leaders with approximately 78% market share and continue to set the standard for search and PPC advertising. Yahoo! has an approximate market share of 8% who are closely followed by MSN who current hold approximately 6%.
How to measure a PPC campaign, and why optimisation is important Measuring the effect and the success of a PPC campaign will be dependent on your objectives. There are basic free tracking solutions available that can help you identify exactly how your PPC campaign is performing. For instance if you are tracking a shopping basket on your site, you can identify where the traffic source came from, what items they have placed in the basket and how much they have spent. There is also the facility to identify where users are dropping off your site to help you improve the design and retention rate. The most commonly used free tracking software systems is Google Analytics. Yahoo! also offer a similar tracking system at a small cost called Search Optimiser.
A word of warning though; running a successful PPC campaign can be very time consuming, especially for the small business where man power is often stretched. Each PPC search engine campaign must be optimised regularly, in other words, you need to check its running in the most cost-effective and efficient way so you’re getting the most relevant traffic for your money. Our SME clients often come to us because they simply don’t have the time or expertise to optimise their campaigns frequently enough.
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) agencies like Weboptimser have specialist staff devoted to working on PPC accounts who optimise the account based on market changes, competitor bid strategies and other key defining factors that affect your account on an hourly basis. SEM Agencies have the added benefit of Bid Management tools that can optimise accounts based on preset strategies and objectives.
Choosing a specialist agency to assist you in running a comprehensive and effective campaign could save you a lot of money; we have clients on our books who were SME’s when they started working with us and now are much bigger and they put that down to the impact search made on their business. Good luck!
For more top tips and case studies, please see our websites www.weboptimiser.com and www.searchtoptips.com
Guide to Pay Per Click search for SME's - To learn more about this author, visit Lucy Green's Website.
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