PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising is a form of outbound marketing that can be a very powerful tool for small, and especially new, businesses. You’ve probably heard people mention Google AdWords, but it is important to remember that Google is not the only search engine out there. Although it is arguably the most popular, many older American consumers are using Bing and Yahoo! Beyond simple search advertising, sites like Facebook, Yellow Pages, LinkedIn, and Yelp all offer paid advertising options.
In prior posts, I’ve talked a great deal about Social Media Marketing and the importance of both being on these networks and keeping them active. In addition to these great FREE tools, there are many ways that utilizing PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising methods can help to boost your business. In fact, paid search can help to support your inbound marketing efforts.
Be found on page one or two, even if you’re new - If you are the “new guy in town” paid search advertising is a good way to get your business featured on the first or second page of search results. It takes one to two months for Google and other search engines to fully “trust” a new website – meaning that many (like us) start on page 60+. I think it’s pretty safe to say that no customer is going to dig that deep to find you! However, by paying $3-5 per “click” you are gaining web traffic from local people looking for your business. In a saturated or competitive market, PPC is an effective way to fill in some SEO (Search Engine Optimization) gaps.
Get to the top, faster - PPC advertising can actually help your business to rise more quickly within the search engines. By being seen and clicked on by new visitors, your site not only expands its reach – but builds credibility. Once they’ve entered your site, the possibility of them connecting with you via social media increases significantly. Many of our clients who have found us through PPC have gone on to read our blog posts, telling us that this is one of the things that really convinced them to choose us over other local designers.
Cost control and ease of use - many of the different options are relatively easy to use. In addition to this, it is easy to control the overall cost of the campaign – something extremely beneficial to companies with a limited budget. You can set limits on price-per-click, daily limits, or overall campaign limits. The different providers will keep you “up to date” via email on your spend and performance. Depending on how closely you’d like to monitor results, you can schedule reports to be sent directly to your email.
Overall, many of the providers of PPC advertising have gone to great lengths to make it easy for you to advertise your business. They provide assistance in setting up your campaign, YouTube video training, FAQs, webcasts, and more. In fact, Google sometimes provides a $100 credit to help you get started and test your campaign. It will also help you develop and set up your initial campaign to the extent necessary based on your computer savvy and specific needs.
Still not sure if this is the right move for your business? Feeling overwhelmed? Give us a call or reply to this blog post! We’d love to help you “be found” in your local marketplace!
