PPC Management Services
Webdesign-rep also provides turnkey PPC, SEM management and marketing services. Not every business is cut out for PPC. That’s why we provide free consultations to better understand your business and to see if PPC is right for you. If your competition is making money using PPC, then chances are that you might be able to as well. It does take some time and requires a commitment. But we’ll be with you – every step of the way. That’s our promise.
What is Pay-Per-Click or Search Engine Marketing?
When you go to Google or Bing search engines you will see ads on the top of each search result page as well as on the right hand side. These are called PPC Ads. The reason they are called PPC Ads is because they are PAY PER CLICK for each ad.
These ads are in an auction environment and the more competitive your business is for example: like insurance or mortgage, you will pay higher prices from placement of these ads. There are several factors that go into the pricing of the ads such as: the quality scores, conversion rates, click through rates and the copy on the landing pages, which eventually turn into the conversion rates. At the same time if you are in the lead generation business, the person answering the phone is the ultimate converting mechanism.
It makes sense to learn how to write great ad copy and do some competitive keyword research on your market then ultimately research your competition. This activity as a whole can be called search engine marketing.
Why Use Pay-Per-Click over SEO?
Ideally you want to use both. But PPC has several advantages over SEO.
- PPC is fast – immediate. You can be up and running in 24 -48 hours
- You can always be on Page 1 for your keyword if you are willing to pay
- You have the ability to test your audience and market very quickly
PPC is a cheap way to make mistakes and learn from them. For example; if you are a lawn care company, you can offer different discounts to see what will make people click on the ad and then what will get them to pick up the phone and call you. Maybe there is not a market for your product or service. PPC is the easiest way to find out before you spend a lot of time and money investing in building a business.
Listening to the search engines
If you pay attention you can learn a lot on how people view your ads and your business offers. Spending a little bit of money ($100’s) early on your website with PPC can save you thousands if not hundreds of thousands in the long run.
We will help you at webdesign-rep.com set up your PPC Account with Google and Bing and manage it professionally for you.
We can give you weekly or monthly reports to let you know how your campaigns are performing. These reports offer valuable insights on how your users are using your website and for how long and if they are converting into leads and eventually revenue.
When selling high end products and services it is a better practice to “sell” than actually give away a free book or white paper in order to build trust. It might require multiple touches with the client in order to get them to actually fill out the form or make the phone call. Trust is the single gold stand in business to get people to convert to paying clients.
Big Players in Pay-Per-Click
The 2 big players left in PPC are:
- Google AdWords has a larger distribution network across Google, AOL, Ask, About, Earthlink, and many others’ sites (even a few of my own).
- Microsoft adCenter is a newer player in the market, but their limited syndication network means their traffic quality is high.
When beginning pay-per-click advertising we recommend focusing on Google AdWords and Microsoft adCenter. You can find enough traffic here in the first 6 months to satisfy just about any marketing budget you have.
Be Prepared to Fail in the Beginning
Most clicks end up being failures. Even if you have a 30% conversion rate, it means that seven out of ten clicks did nothing for you. When you dip your toes into the pay-per-click market, there stands a good chance you will lose money before you start making money. There are several reasons for this:
- You need to learn how the systems work.
- Learn what terms are important and what ones are not
- Learn how to target the ads
- Learn how to write the ad copy
- Learn how to bid, where to rank, and what terms are overpriced
- You are competing against the best accounts.
- Some competing advertisers may have other intangible assets that give them an unfair advantage.
- If you are brand new, your competitors have more experience than you do.
- Some ad campaigns have been fine tuned for months.
- Search engines are building trust factors into ad accounts.
Some advertisers may get quality boosts and cheaper ads just for being long-term advertisers, or for advertising trusted websites.
Search engines try to sell the concept of pay-per-click marketing saying that it is so targeted that everyone makes money, but in the real world, that is not how things work. Some markets are competitive and will require learning, practice, sound strategy, and tracking to generate profits.
Why Pay-Per-Click is Important
What you think might be important keywords or converting keywords might not be the actual converting keywords that you really need. This can be both good news and bad news. Good news is that if your term that convers for you is not heavily searched on it means that the bid price might be lower. At the same time the keywords you don’t know you need are the same ones that everyone else is bidding on can cost you an arm and a leg.
I like to use PPC as a testing ground for SEO. Knowing what converts in PPC will allow us to focus on the keyword content that performs better on the SEO or organic side of the business, also known as the content side of the business. Any SEO traffic that you can add to your site is icing on the cake because when SEO performs for you it requires very little maintenance on going as long as people are sharing the content because it offer some sort of value.
PPC is the perfect testing mechanism. Find out what works and do more of it. Find out what does not work and either change it or delete it. Contact Jim Peake to get some pricing on your PPC campaign.