Evolving search engine algorithms and shifting search-engine optimization norms may have shifted pay-per-click advertisements’ roles in online marketing. That doesn’t make it wise to take for granted the prominent visibility-boosting advantage of an ad sitting squarely atop your targeted keyword’s searches, even when searchers don’t click it.
In a brilliant way, it remains one of the pay-per-click model’s most brilliant aspects: since you pay a fee for every click on an ad that directs a curious visitor to your site, you’re only footing the bill for advertisement that’s definitely served its intended purpose unlike website banner, billboard, radio or television ads. Since one can fairly reason that increasing clicks to your ad mean more opportunities to convert visitors into paying customers, your per-click rate even diminishes as your traffic builds.
It’s advertising that gets cheaper the more effective it proves to be!
Still, some might try to tell you that it’s a borderline-antiquated form of marketing that’s falling by the wayside as Google in particular shifts priorities toward original content. We’d like to share a few truths that will at least clarify such a claim, if not outright dispel it.
- Superb SERP Placement
With the right approach, it won’t entirely matter whether a search engine visitor actually clicks the link or not.
You still make a worthwhile investment any time you pay for an instance when an ad-click that sends someone to your site ends with a completed sale. After all, that single sale may have just led to the asset that every business prizes in any given transaction: the repeat customer.
Nevertheless, click-through traffic via pay-per-click has become harder and harder to come by as Google plays into a collective user tendency to favor organic search results over overt advertisements. No matter. Your brand name – and, assuming you’ve structured your ad well and optimized it via Google AdWords, you business’ URL, physical address and phone number – still sits optimally visible atop the search engine results page (SERP) for your focus keyword. Think of pay-per-click and search engine optimization (SEO) as “diet” and “exercise”: they’re beneficial separately, but most effective together.
- Measurable, Instant Results
Indulge us a moment. We’re admittedly about to perhaps over-simplify something.
True, we believe strongly in casting a wide marketing net. Why settle for a one-track marketing approach? Even as it undergoes a paradigm shift away from classic tactics such as simple keyword-stuffing and link-farming, SEO can absolutely still drive results. It deserves your focus.
That being said, understanding how your SEO campaign has benefitted you requires taking a deeper look at analytics and revenue together than it takes to see whether or not pay-per-click ads have helped you. Whereas SEO strategies require a certain patience while desired results fall into place and grow your business, PPC campaigns can generate instant traffic bumps that you can see.
- Keeping It Simple
It boils right down to this: pay-per-click advertising campaigns boost visibility to a custom-targeted audience at minimal expense. You pay for what you get – no more, no less.
That alone makes it perfect for smaller brands without much of a startup budget. Your campaign’s success still depends upon understanding your audience’s needs and its geographic definition, but your results will be instant, visible cost-proportionate. Remember also that as your pay-per-click strategies grow increasingly successful, your cost per click falls.
On a small budget, pay-per-click makes an effective minimal-investment building block to your marketing campaign. As you grow, don’t forget to increase that investment to include a smart SEO campaign that will build up increasingly prominent organic search results, though.
Chocolate tastes great. So does peanut butter. Together, they’d downright magical.
Last Updated on March 28, 2022 by Hitesh Lamba