What is PPC?

Essentially, PPC marketing is a form of advertising where companies agree to pay a predetermined sum for each unique Internet user that clicks on one of their ads. Generally speaking, PPC adverts are the ones you see at the top and right hand side of the main search results page. Although there are now numerous PPC programs, Google’s AdWords and Yahoo Search Engine Marketing remain the most popular.

Benefits of PPC Marketing

Primarily, the main benefits of advertising with PPC are speed, targeting and return-on-investment tracking, also referred to as ROI. For the most part, PPC adverts will become active on a search engine within 24 hours. Furthermore, by only bidding for certain keywords, you can ensure that your advert will only be displayed when someone performs a search using the keywords you’ve bid on. Likewise, you can also opt for your ads only to be displayed to users in a specific geographical area. This of course is essential for those advertising a service which is only available locally. Last but not least, you have the ability to track performance. In other words, you can check to see how much you’re spending on PPC advertising, how much you’re earning from it and even which keywords are performing the best. Of course, those keywords which are not getting any hits need to be changed.

Proper keyword analysis is fundamental to all Internet marketers, both before and during a PPC campaign. Failure to do this properly can cost you a lot of money on advertising, not to mention a lot of potential customers. Even the actual PPC companies recognise this and provide complimentary tools which are capable of suggesting the ultimate keywords with regards to the product or service you’re marketing. Having said all that, effective bid management is perhaps equally as important because after all, your bid amount has a direct impact on the position of your add. The higher your bid, the further up your ad will be placed.

PPC vs. Organic Search Engine Marketing

Contrary to what many people may believe, PPC and organic search engine marketing can go together perfectly. Just to clarify matters, organic search engine marketing refers to the results which show up on the main part of the page when a user has carried out a search.  Below are some criteria which one could consider with regards to PPC vs. organic search engine marketing:

• The costs involved with PPC advertising can be astronomical, hence the importance of setting up a daily budget
• The results of organic search engine marketing are far longer lasting than PPC results
• The organic approach takes considerably longer to produce results but it only costs a fraction of the price
• Research suggests that search engines favour organic SEO over PPC
• Studies also show that users trust organic SEO more than they trust PPC
• Users in general are becoming more familiar with PPC ad placements, thus resulting in fewer clicks that qualify

As can be seen, both organic and PPC have their own advantages and disadvantages so ideally one should try and use both if it’s justified. Generally speaking, PPC is a good way to get your campaign started in a hurry. Once your organic search engine marketing has had adequate time to produce results, you can then start scaling back with your PPC campaign.

Which method of traffic generation do you use; PPC, organic search engine marketing, or both? Please post your comments below.

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1. The number one reason for using pay-per-click advertising, is to draw any potential customers away from your competitors. Let’s face it, when you search for something on the Internet, you are presented with thousands of results so more often than not, you only pay attention to the first few results. Well, you’re not the only one that does this. Everyone else also only clicks on the first few results, hence the reason for using pay-per-click. When you use pay-per-click advertising, you are guaranteed that your entry will be displayed at the top, or at least somewhere near the top of the returned search results. So, now we can see how beneficial this can be, simply because there is much more chance that someone will look at your entry.

2. A further benefit of pay-per-click advertising is that your entry will have a top position in search results right from the very start which of course can save you considerable time and effort. However, getting a really good position can be quite expensive.

3. If you’re using pay-per-click advertising, you’ll notice your advert appearing on the right hand side of Google search pages which of course really makes your ad noticeable and gives it more of a chance of being clicked on. So, yes pay-per-click does increase website exposure.

4. Pay-per-click advertising is exceptionally beneficial to niche markets because one is able to customize advertising campaigns with the use of specifically targeted keywords. By following this route you attract only targeted visitors to your site simply because pay-per-click if the most efficient way of finding potential customers for your specific niche. As you can well imagine, the benefits are plentiful considering just how quickly your site will move up to the top of search results. The truth of the matter is that there is simply no faster means of luring targeted visitors to your niche site.

5. While pay-per-click does cost money, it can also save you money. Why? Because with pay-per-click advertising, you only pay when your ad is clicked on. The cost of regular advertising on the other hand is based on your advert alone, whether or not anyone even clicks on it.

Just before I end off, I want to mention one other factor which you should take into consideration. If you have loads of money and you know beyond all doubt that your product will sell successfully, then sure, go ahead and aim for the first or second position at the top of search results. If not, you need to optimize your entry in such a way that it appears between the third and eighth position. This way, you’ll not only save a lot of money on advertising, but you’ll still reap the benefits of having your ad near the top of the page. Being in the fourth or fifth position won’t have any noticeable negative impact on the effectiveness. You can be rest assured, if you manage to pull this off, then there is simply no doubt at all that pay-per-click advertising will work for you.

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