Strategy 5 – Invest in Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising
Invest in Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising
We live in the information age, there’s no escaping it. Why would you want to escape it? – embrace it. To keep ahead of your competition and to drive your business forwards, you must aim to become an expert at internet marketing; particularly Pay Per Click Advertising and particularly on Google.
PPC, as its known, is probably the most powerful breakthrough in marketing in decades, yet very few business owners seem to fully understand its power.
Utilising PPC advertising you can reach an audience, anywhere in the world, who have an interest in what you have to offer and more to the point, people who are looking for it right now! In fact, I would take the bet that right now, as you’re reading this, there are people on Google looking for what you have to offer – are they going to find you, or one of your competitors?
When people search on Google for your product or service, you need to be listed on the first page of any Google search. Who do you know that goes to page three four or five? To achieve this “organically” through search engine optimisation (SEO) can be a bit of a lottery, expensive and time consuming. PPC can get you on the front page.
Through these small classified type ads you have the ability to direct people straight to your website. These small ads appear at or near the top of the search engine results when prospects do their search on Google. Best news of all, you only pay for your advertising when someone actually clicks on your ad, hence Pay Per Click. You also have the ability to turn your ad on and off and fine tune it at will. Turn on the tab – leads pour in. Turn off the tap – convert the leads and repeat the cycle.
Google your product or service today and see the results. Look to the right hand side of the screen and the results listed there are the PPC ads. If you’re serious about succeeding in business you must test PPC out.
There’s even free software available that will let you see what “keywords” your competitors are using, how much they’re paying and lots, lots more.
If you take nothing else from this report – get your head around PPC and start generating more leads than you thought possible.
All the best,
Steve Clarke
Hello Steve
We have used Google adwords for 7 months and our return on our outgoings was almost nil. We certainly got the hits but not the purchases? It has left me feeling very sceptical about who is clicking on these adverts?
It seems to be a complete lottery as to how to market your adverts?
Regards
Beverley
Beautiful Bosom
Far from being a lottery, PPC works. It’s the perfect way to drive the “right” traffic, not just traffic.
You might want to come to one of my “what the web guys don’t want you to know” classes.
There’s a lot to PPC, but I promise, when you understand about seeking out less searched for terms – you’ll get results.
Hi Steve,
I agree about PPC. It is a very lucrative way of generating leads and the option to turn it off is also excellent. However I do think it is very important to maintain a good level of both PPC and Organic, simply because some people are sceptical about companies paying to ‘go to the top’ and genuinely trust more in businesses that appear in the first few ‘organic’ results. I think that way you have a larger net to catch more customers in.
Enjoyed your talk at The EBA last month, great stuff!
Robin Masters
Premier Wallcoatings
I can understand why PPC didn’t work for Beverley, the nature of her business means even the most carefully chosen key words can lead the wrong person to her site which can be expensive. Good SEO has the same problem but at least it doesn’t cost you money every time someone is mis-directed to your site. However there is no point spending money to get potential customers to your site if that site doesn’t do a good job of convincing them that they want to do business with you rather than your competitors. You need to concentrate your efforts their first.
Hi Beverley,
I can only support Steve’s enthusiasm. In the first year we tried it, we generated £60,000 of revenue for every £3,000 we spent on PPC and we were launching a very niche product.
It’s really important to word your ad clearly so that it filters out (before they click and cost you money) those people who want a different product or price point to that which you are offering. For example, we sell a premium fly screen product, so have to filter out people browsing for TV screens, projector screens, motor bike fly screens, etc plus people who only want a cheap fly curtain or similar low cost product.
You can also use Google Analytics to report on what your site visitors are doing and understand why they might be leaving the site without making an enquiry.
Regards,
Dan