What is Pay Per Click?
Pay per click (PPC) advertising is another effective method of marketing your website. You select a group of keywords that you wish your site to be found under and then bid how much each will cost you when someone clicks on the sponsered link. How much you will need to bid will depend on your budget and chosen keywords. Your sponsered link ad will appear in a special area of the search engine results. With Google this is normally either at the top of the page or in the far right hand side listings. Which page of results your ad will appear on depends on how much you bid. Generally the more popular a keyword is the more it will cost per click in order to ensure it remains on the first page of results.
Keyword research is an important part of any pay per click (PPC) campaign. Well researched keywords or phrases will bring targetted website traffic within the budgets you set. Running your own pay per click scheme can be tricky so sometimes it may be worthwhile considering to employ a reputable marketing company to run the campaign on your behalf. If you are someone who likes to be in firm control of your marketing then it is better that you run the campaign. This way you can set your own keywords and budget levels. Most of the major pay per click (PPC) providers now have excellent tutorials designed to get your campaign up and running as quickly as possible.
Do I use search engine optimisation (SEO) or pay per click (PPC)?
Both of these marketing schemes can be equally effective and have their own advantages and disadvantages. Which one you choose to use will be influenced by timescale, budget and keywords used.
Pay per click (PPC) delivers results very quickly once its up and running while an optimised site can take anywhere between 3 to 6 months before it starts to become effective. Where as most optimisation services are a fixed yearly fee pay per click (PPC) schemes can easily become incredibly expensive especially if your keywords are very competitive. Remember that with an optimised site you will not be charged any extra if a search engine visitor does not use your services. With pay per click (PPC) you will be charged regardless of whether the click results in a sale. Some companies will use both schemes if it is within their budget. By carefully using different keywords for each scheme this can be a very effective way of gettting your return on investment (ROI).