Pay per Click Internet Marketing - An Introduction
What is pay-per-click search engine marketing?
Pay-per-click advertisements are the ads that you see in search engines marked as “Sponsored Ads”.
Advertisers choose which search phrases they want to appear for, and decide (“bid”) how much they are prepared to pay every time someone clicks on their ad. Generally speaking, the more you bid, the higher your ad appears. Each time someone clicks on it, the amount that you have bid is deducted from your account.
What are the advantages of pay-per-click search engine marketing?
Most people tend to think that it’s better to have their site appearing in the “main” search engine results rather than the pay-per-click ads. To a certain extent this is wise – searchers are more likely to click on the main results.
However, there are circumstances in which it is either not possible, or not desirable, to appear in the main results. For example:
- If yours is a brand new site it may be difficult to get good results in the main search engines initially – particularly in Google.
- There may be issues to do with the way your site is built which are stopping it getting good rankings in the main search results – for example, it might be built wholly in Flash.
- You may want to target phrases which do not appear on your site – for example, common misspellings. To obtain high rankings for those misspellings in the ‘main’ search results, you would need to use them on your site, which might make you look unprofessional.
- You may want to target a very wide range of phrases, and you may not have the time and/or budget to optimise your site for these.
Pay-per-click marketing is also a good way to ‘test the water’ with internet marketing, and find out whether marketing through the search engines is likely to be profitable for your business.
It can be extremely cost-effective, if closely managed – Google AdWords (Google’s pay-per-click programme), for example, has a minimum cost per click of just 4 pence. You only pay when somebody clicks on your ad, so if nobody clicks, you don’t pay*!
*Some pay-per-click programmes do, however, have minimum monthly charges and/or setup fees.
What different pay-per-click programmes are available?
The two main pay-per-click programmes are Google AdWords and Yahoo Sponsored Search.
Google AdWords supplies ads to Google, Ask Jeeves, AOL and a number of other sites.
Yahoo Sponsored Search ads appear on Yahoo, MSN, Altavista and many other sites.
There are a number of other pay-per-click programmes which appear on minor search engines and other sites.
Most small businesses automatically choose Google AdWords because this is the one they have heard of, and because Google is the most widely used search engine at the moment.
However, it is not necessarily the best choice for everyone – despite having a lower minimum cost per click, there are usually a lot more people bidding against you than there are in Yahoo, so it can actually work out more expensive.
Of course, you don’t have to choose between the various programmes, and can try out a number of them to see which get the best results for your business.
How do I get started?
First, pick the phrases that you want to target – which phrases do you want your advert to come up for?
Start with a relatively short list – 10 or 20 phrases. Then use the free keyword research tools provided by Google Adwords and Yahoo Sponsored Search to find lots more related phrases:
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordSandbox
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
Remember, the words that you use to describe your product or service are not necessarily what your target audience would use.
Next, subdivide your list of phrases into a number of categories – if you are selling jewellery, for example, you might have an ‘earrings’ category, a ‘necklaces’ category, a ‘bracelets’ category and so on.
For each category, write a different advertisement, which closely focuses on those searchers’ needs.
Tips for writing successful pay-per-click adverts
Read the search engine’s own guidelines first and stick to them!
Experiment with the wording of your ads, trying several different formats and comparing results in order to see what works best.
Include a ‘call-to-action’ such as ‘download’, ‘buy’, ‘apply online’ or ‘book’.
If you have a free trial / consultation / sample etc, mention it!
You are very limited for space, especially in Google:
Google AdWords
Title: 25 characters
Line 1: 35 characters
Line 2: 35 characters
(includes spaces)
Yahoo Sponsored Search
Title: 40 characters
Description: 190 characters
(includes spaces)
How much does it cost?
The table below compares the cost of the two main pay-per-click programmes, as at August 2005.
£5 activation fee
Minimum cost per click: 4p
Yahoo Sponsored Search
Minimum deposit £60
Minimum cost per click: 10p
Minimum spend per month: £20
All prices listed above are exclusive of VAT.
You can use a search engine marketing consultant to set up and run your pay-per-click campaigns for you. This will obviously incur an additional cost – usually a setup fee followed by subsequent monthly maintenance fees – but this may be offset to a certain extent by the fact that the consultant should be able to help you get better value for money out of your pay-per-click account, simply because they have had experience of managing a large number of accounts in the past.
Tracking your success
Both Google AdWords and Yahoo Sponsored Search have sophisticated reporting systems, which enable you to track and analyse the success of your campaigns.
For example, you should be able to see which keywords are delivering the best results for you, which adverts are attracting the most clicks, and which days of the week are working best for you.
You can even paste some code onto your website so that Google and/or Yahoo can track how many conversions (sales / enquiries etc) you have had from your advertisements.
By keeping a close eye on your campaigns, it should be possible to make sure your advertising is delivering good value for money and helping you to grow your business.
Article supplied by WiRE member Helen Mitchell of Ascendancy Internet Marketing:
www.ascendancyinternetmarketing.com
helen@ascendancyinternetmarketing.com
01952 676809
© 2012