Pay-Per-Click Can Produce Amazing Results
It’s a known fact that Google accounts for over 70% of all search traffic on the Internet. Though YouTube has recently risen to the number two spot, Yahoo makes up the majority of the remaining search traffic. It naturally follows then, that most Internet users looking for information (not videos) can be reached through either Google or Yahoo at any given time. This presents an amazing opportunity for marketers.
By simply advertising on Google and Yahoo, a marketer can potentially reach the majority of his or her intended target audience. This kind of reach is unfounded with most other forms of advertising and is exactly why search marketing has become so popular; it provides marketers with a powerful means of reaching customers to create buying opportunities.
While there are several methods of search marketing, Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is the quickest and easiest. It enables companies to create ads and select keywords that will trigger the ads to appear in response to a search engine query. As an example, if you are selling car wax, you may want to consider having your ad appear when people search for “car wax.” PPC enables you to do this. When your ad appears, and a viewer clicks on it, they will be immediately taken to a designated page for them to learn more about, and hopefully buy your product. The cost of this visit is the value of the click which depends on the popularity of the keyword.
The key to making PPC a success is applying a strategic approach. The basic steps include: the careful selection of keywords that will drive the most relevant traffic to your web pages, writing compelling ads, establishing a competitive “click through” budget, creating and presenting compelling offers on your site, establishing goals and finally, measuring results. By following these steps and a few sub processes, strong results can follow.
Results will vary for each advertiser depending on many factors, such as market saturation, keyword saturation, click through costs, the number of clicks that ads attract and the ability to convert customers once they arrive at a website. A good campaign can yield click-through-rates anywhere from 2.5% to 15%. Some that are niche specific can perform even better. Conversion rates can range from 1.5% to 10%, or even higher depending on the website page experience and the product offer. Overall, a strategically planned PPC campaign can result in a substantial inflow of traffic and sales growth when it’s done right.
