What Should I Know about PPC?

04 Oct What Should I Know about PPC?

What Should I Know about PPC?

PPC or Pay per Click advertising is a great but expensive way to bring visitors to your website.  Here, we’ve collected a variety of things that you should know if you’re looking into utilizing PPC to increase your earnings.

What is PPC?

PPC is short for Pay per Click marketing.  This type of advertising allows you to place an ad on a search engine or partner site.  Normally you would have to pay a flat fee for advertising on someone else’s website.  Not with PPC. Instead, you only pay an advertising fee when someone clicks your link.

Search engine PPC listings are usually more expensive than those that allow you to place links on partnered sites.

Does anyone even click those ads?

Yes, more people click on PPC ads that you would think. In 2012, for example, Google received nearly 98% of its revenue for the year from advertising.  To put that in perspective for you, the tech giant earned over $40 billion, just from people clicking on ads.

Why do people click on ads instead of organic results?

People click on ads for a lot of reasons.  It could be that they are on a mobile device and can’ tell that it’s an advertisement.  It could be because it is simply the best result for their search.

Or it could be because, in many cases, the advertisements appear above the organic searches, making them more appealing to the eye.

Why is PPC better than SEO?

It isn’t, necessarily.  PPC and SEO should be used hand in hand to maximize the number of visitors you have to your website.  The big difference between PPC and SEO is that PPC provides faster and more measurable results. Instead of guessing how many views your keywords have brought in, you will have hard data that you can look at anytime.

PPC usually leads to a higher conversion rate as well, which is essential if you’re using your site to sell goods or services.

Which PPC is the most effective, Yahoo, Bing, or Google?

Without a doubt, PPC marketing through Google is the most effective way to go. In general, it’s because most people use Google over any other search engine option.  In the US, that’s more than 70% of users and more than 80% worldwide.

This doesn’t mean you should neglect the other 20-30% of the world that uses Bing or Yahoo.  On the contrary, this could help you bring in clicks and conversions that other similar companies might be missing out on.

So, how much does PPC cost?

That will vary depending on the search engine that you’re working with.  Google, for example, allows you to set your own budget for the month. You can spend as much or as little as you want, with the minimum for starting an account resting at an easy to manage $50. Once you’ve spent your budget for the month, your ad will simply vanish until the end of the month.

Conclusions

If you want to jump start your web-based business, then PPC is the tool for you.