Used correctly, pay per click advertising can be one of the best, and fastest, ways to bring qualified prospects to your website. It's not always as cost-effective as organic search engine optimization, of course, but it does have some distinct advantages: namely, that you can have it up and running in minutes, and that you can specify any landing page that you want, making changes and testing them instantly.
But one thing that a lot of online marketers struggle with is determining the right spending level for their PPC campaigns. Paying too much, and you're basically pouring money down a funnel; commit too little, and you'll never see results.
Here are three quick tips for setting your pay per click budget on Google, Yahoo, and Bing:
Measure sales closely. Ultimately, the decision about how much to spend should come down to the issue of how much you're earning in return. If it's coming back to you in new sales almost immediately, then don't stop as long as it's profitable; if not, then ask yourself why, and set your budget accordingly in the meantime.
Measure other activity. In some industries, a successful "hit" from the pay per click campaign might not lead to an immediate sale. That's why it's so important to track the source of new business, as well as residual effects over time. Just because someone doesn't call or pick up the phone right away doesn't mean they won't later. Often, a PPC campaign can be more profitable than you first think when you get the chance to look at the big picture.
Don't bid all out for no reason. Obviously, the first ad position on any page is going to get the most hits, all things being considered. But what a lot of marketers don't realize is that the second, third, and even eighth positions can get a lot of traffic too – especially in certain markets where there's a lot of competition. That means it doesn't always make sense to pay for the top spots. Try bidding for a few different positions and see how your results are affected – you might find that you can get a much bigger return by having your ad displayed a bit lower in the results.
Even a few years ago, standard advice from a web designer online marketing team would be to start a blog and RSS feed on your website, and to populate both with company or industry news as often as possible. After all, what better way to keep people informed and build your own content profile at the same time then by giving them a constant taste of what's going on the world?
That makes sense, until you fast-forward a handful of years and find that everyone's doing it.
In fact, with the sheer number of news sites out there, RSS feeds available, and even real-time search engine updates, the problem isn't that people are having any trouble finding what's going on, but that it's hard to sort through all the news and find information.
With that in mind, one easy way for you to set your website and business apart from all its competitors is by giving visitors what they really crave: insight and advice, rather than a steady stream of data. Unless your customers are living in a cave, they already know what's going on – what they want from you is a better sense of what new developments mean to them.
That means populating your site with columns, blog posts, and other updates that center on sound business advice. Don't just tell people what you saw, fill them in on what it means to them, what future implications could be, how they might profit from it in the future, and so on. Before long, you'll find that you won't have to seek visitors just through search engines and online newsletters, because they'll be telling each other about you and showing up on their own.
There were plenty of places for people to go and find news online, and they probably do the job better than your company could. But what no one can duplicate is your specific industry knowledge and insight, so keep that in mind and give your customers what it is they really want.