The Low Down on Pay-Per-Click
Regardless of the type of website that you own, it is imperative to drive traffic to it. After all, unless you want to be the only person who will ever see it, you will need to take steps to let people know that your site exists.
There are several marketing strategies that are utilized to increase a website’s search engine ranking and daily amount of traffic, and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is definitely one of the most popular options. By creating quality PPC ads that run on websites such as Google, you can easily transform an under-performing website into a solid financial resource.
What Exactly is Pay-Per-Click Advertising?
PPC advertisements enable you to get a message about your website in front of a large group of people for a discounted rate. Instead of standard banner ads that can cost several hundred dollars for a limited time period, you will only be required to pay when someone actually clicks on your advertisement.
The advantage of this is easy to understand, especially when you consider that anyone who is interested enough to click on your ad is much more likely to actually spend more than a couple of seconds on your website.
The most popular example of PPC advertising is Google AdWords, but the format is also used by a wide variety of other websites, including Facebook. Google’s version enables owners to push their website toward the top of the search engine’s site rankings. These paid advertisements will catch the attention of most Internet users, and this will help you capture a larger percentage of your target audience.
How do I Design a Quality Pay-Per-Click Ad?
You will be given the opportunity to enter a target market and several keywords that are relevant to your website. By properly taking advantage of these options, you will ensure that your ads employ the necessary search engine optimization (SEO) techniques.
After all, if people who look for information about your specific company or general industry are unable to easily find either your PPC ad or your website’s search engine listing, you will not be able to capture a large audience.
Everspark Interactive, an SEO firm in Atlanta is one of the many companies that provide SEO services in the United States. Among many other rules, Everspark Interactive teaches its clients that keeping SEO in mind at all times during the construction of your website and your PPC ads is crucial.
The most important thing, besides using the right keywords, is to make sure that you are targeting the right audience. After all, if you have a locally owned comic book store in New York City, it is not going to make sense to target people who live outside of the general area.
You should also consider your key demographic when you are setting up your parameters, and make sure to use common keywords that are associated with your industry. In the comic book store example, that would include keywords such as Spider-Man, Batman and Superman.
How do I know if My Ads are Working?
You should receive a PPC analysis along with your paid advertisement. For example, Google Analytics is a powerful tool that makes it easy to figure out if an ad is attracting a lot of traffic. However, if you are paying for hundreds of clicks a day without getting a lot of additional business, it is important to try a new approach by changing your keywords.
If you take advantage of everything that PPC has to offer, it can help you greatly increase your website traffic. As long as you offer a quality service or product to everyone who clicks on your ad, you should also see a better bottom line.
Felicia Willis is a writer and editor of more than 15 years, and lives in Atlanta. Everspark Interactive is an SEO firm in Atlanta that takes the mystery out of SEO practices, and teaches about the importance of it. Photo credit: altemark.
