Our fourth key facet to growing your business online is Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC). There’s no denying it: PPC Advertising is a very effective strategy.
PPC is the fastest way to ensure your website appears in the search engines when someone searches online. So why not just use this digital marketing tactic and nothing else? Well, PPC can get expensive really fast.
It can certainly be worth the investment, and we’re all for it, but you definitely want other digital marketing strategies, like Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Marketing, backing you up and bringing free, organic traffic to your business’s website.
How Does PPC Work, and How Can I Use It to Double My Traffic?
PPC means you pay a certain amount of money to Google so they list ads for your website at the top and bottom of the organic search listings for particular keyword searches. When a person clicks on your ad, you pay the CPC (cost per click) you have budgeted for your PPC campaign.
To double your traffic, you’ll need to understand the basics of PPC and some strategies you can implement into your PPC campaign.
Step 1: Choose the keywords or phrases you want to target for your business. Google has some helpful tools that provide insights into how many people search for specific keywords and how often they search. You can see this information using Google Keyword Planner and others.
Step 2: Set a budget for how much you are willing to pay for clicks that get people to your website. Base this budget on the number of searches your targeted keywords get. Google’s tools can give you an idea of how much you should consider bidding for your targeted keywords.
Step 3: Build your PPC account in an organized structure, using Campaigns, Ad Groups, Ads and your chosen, relevant keywords. This is an easy strategy to overlook and underestimate. The more organized your account is, the easier it will be to see what parts of your PPC campaign are doing well, helping bring people to your website. This will also help you see what parts of your account need focused attention for improvement.
Step 4: Create relevant ads for your targeted keywords and organize them into appropriate ad groups and campaigns. Your ads are what people see. This part of your PPC account is what communicates to people the value you are offering. Take the needed time to write effective headlines, descriptions, and find ways to stand out from other ads that will appear in the search engine results page. If your ads struggle in the area of quality, Google may not show them even for your targeted keyword searches.
Step 5: Always look for ways to improve your account. PPC is a great way to improve your marketing strategy, but just like any strategy, it takes a consistent process of fine-tuning and improving so that your account adjusts and grows as searches for your keywords do.
Now that you’ve seen the steps. Here are a few other details you’ll want to know about PPC.
Extensions
There are many ad extension options to choose from. These could include: social extensions, review extensions, site links, call extensions, store hours extensions, etc. Adding extensions to your ad enlarges your ad space and the visibility of your business on the search results page. It also adds value to your ad and makes you more trustworthy to consumers.
Bid Amount
As mentioned above, you need to know how much money you are willing to pay for a click for different keywords. If you pay more, your ads will show up more often and closer to the top of the page.
Keep in mind that not all keywords bring the same value to your business. You don’t want to pay the same amount for all of your keywords. Some keywords have greater buyer intent, which means a user is much more likely to buy when using that search query than they would be when using another. Increasing your bids on these keywords can only bring more sales and leads to your business.
The bid amount isn’t all up to you though. The Quality Score Google gives you contributes to how much you have to bid, as well.
Quality Score
Google determines Quality Score by a past performance review. Have users clicked on your ads before? Did these users buy after they got to your page? If your score is low, you will be required to pay more for your ads.
Sometimes it won’t matter how much you’re willing to pay for your ads though. If your Quality Score is low, there is a chance that Google won’t show your ads very often at all because users are not likely to click on them, which means Google doesn’t make money on those ads. That’s why getting a good quality score is so important. Do this by choosing keywords people will want to click on and that are relevant to the pages you’re sending them to.
Geo Targeting
Another great feature of PPC ads is geo-targeting. You can target your ads to appear only in certain locations. For instance, if you are a small business in Amarillo with a local product, you won’t want your ads showing up in San Francisco to an audience that can’t even buy your product. It’s a waste of ad spend and money that could be put to better use in your own location.
Or say you are a national business who gets great sales in Texas, Florida, and New York but has low conversion rate in California. You may want to target more of your ads toward these highlighted states first instead of wasting money on states that are not interested in the product you have to offer.
How do you gain great insight like this? Geo-targeting shows you where the majority of your customers are so you can spend your money there. This type of tracking is essential to PPC.
Conclusion
These are just a few PPC basics and strategies to help grow your business’s online presence twofold. With the right campaign and consistent tracking, you’ll see great returns on your investment, which will have you wishing all of your campaigns showed such great returns.
Does the whole idea of PPC seem overwhelming to you but something you really want for your business? Let us give it a try for you! Find out more about our PPC services.