Contrary to popular belief, creating a ton of content, writing blog post every day and making sure you are active on social media is not the only way to attract clients. There are other simpler and straightforward ways to grow your business, generate leads and get sales – one of them is pay-per-click.
What is Pay-per-click?
Pay-per-click often referred to as PPC, Paid Search or Search Engine Marketing, is a form of online marketing that allows advertisers to pay to show up in the search engine results. When a user conducts a search query for the keyword that an advertiser is bidding on, their ad will show up, once someone clicks on the ad, the advertiser pays. If no one clicks on the ad, then the advertiser do not pay anything.
The difference between Pay-per-click and Search Engine Optimization?
Businesses are always vying to show up on the first page of the search engine result pages, both pay-per-click and search engine optimization allows you the opportunity to do so. Search engines tend to display two types of results. Pay-per-click results and SEO results (See image below). The difference with pay-per-click is that you can pay to show up in the search results right away, with search engine optimization, you cannot pay to show up in the search results, you can only show up by optimizing your website through a series of task on your website, + Add New Category and it generally takes at least 3 months to start showing up. With pay-per-click, you get the same benefit but you can start showing up right away. SEO is great as a long term strategy because it can be more cost effective, it’s also ideal for people who don’t have a PPC budget and wants to gain exposure online by optimizing their website themselves. Pay-per-click is also a great solution if you have a difficult time ranking for your target keywords due to high competition.
Show up on Google, Bing or Yahoo!
Although, Google is the most dominant search engine with over 64% of search market share, advertisers can gain additional exposure by running pay-per-click ad campaigns on Bing and Yahoo as well.
What makes Pay-per-click advertising so Appealing?
With over 1 million businesses using Pay-per-click to generate leads, get clients and grow their business. Pay-per-click is appealing for several reasons.
- Unlike SEO, content marketing or social media that takes a long time to build a following and generate buzz, businesses can start generating leads and sales almost right away.
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- You don’t need to convince people they need your products or services, if they are already searching for it. You just need to convince them that you’re the best choice.
- The barrier to entry is very low, you can get started with as little as $100 with Google AdWords.
- It levels the playing field against bigger competitors, just imagine your ads showing among companies that are twice your size or event bigger with the ability to target larger clients.
- Pay-per-click advertising requires less of a time commitment than other forms of marketing. Once you have setup your account, you just need to monitor it and make tweaks to improve.
- The return on investment (ROI) tend to be very high, personally I have seen a ROI from 10 times to 32 times what I have spent.
How to attract clients with Pay-per-click?
To attract clients with Pay-per-click you will need to first choose the search engine you would like to advertise on. Google is recommended because it gets the highest search volume, however you can also target Bing which supplies Yahoo with search results.
Once you have decided which search engine you want to advertise on, you will need to setup an account that includes choosing the keywords that you would like to target. Consider what your target audience will use to search online for your product or service. You will then need to create ads that will grab the attention of your target audience and set a budget.
It’s important to note that in order to launch a pay-per-click campaign, you will need to have a website or landing page where you can direct people to. It is recommended that you direct the people that click on your ad to a landing page that is specific to your ads that is free from distraction in terms of the amount of links on the page. Landing pages also tend to have higher conversion rates.