If you've been looking at Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, and wondering what else you can do to generate more traffic for your website, you might want to think about trying Pay Per Click advertising. There are good points and bad points for Pay Per Click, or PPC, so doing some research into both is a good idea before you jump in with both feet.
One of the things to understand right up front is that getting the most clicks on your ad link going to your website isn't the end all and be all for the effort. The click has to end up driving more business your way for it to pay off and be profitable for you. How you make that happen is the source of most of the PPC controversy.
Ultimately, however, what PPC does for you is get more people to come to your website if you "win" bids on keywords and phrases used for internet searches. You've seen the listings at the top of a Google search that have "Ad" in a little gold box - sometimes they show up on the right side of the page, too. These are the search results from paid advertising for those listings. The retailer or service provider has entered into a bidding auction on the keywords or phrases used in the Google search, and if you click on their ad link, they pay for that click - whatever the bid was. If the winning bid is $0.10 per click, then every time a user clicks on their ad link, they pay 10 cents for that click.
The trick is to get that click to pay off by generating more business or some tangible result from the click that means they are getting the word out about their products or services. Whether it is a direct sale, or a way to follow up with a potential customer and drip on them slowly to get business over time, you are getting a return on your investment with the PPC bids.
You need to have some things going for you with PPC that help make it profitable. You should consider that the writing of your ad description be on point, descriptive, and above all done with good grammar, spelling and language. Consider the target audience - tailor the ad copy to that audience. Follow the rules of the search engine - most have requirements around capitalization and use of superlatives.
Make sure you are paying attention to the results of your PPC campaign. The ultimate goal being to drive more traffic and get more business, make it a short term campaign with measurable results to get the most bang for your buck. Watch carefully to see if the results are what you anticipate. If not, adjust the ad - the copy, the keywords or phrases to be more specific, the resulting action a user takes when clicking through to your site.
There are many ways to capitalize on Pay Per Click when it comes to Search Engine Optimization. Research and time spent ahead of time can save you headaches and make your results what you want them to be.
