3 Tips to Paid Online Advertising That Works

We focus a lot of effort on search engine optimization (SEO) as part of our clients' internet marketing strategies. We optimize your website copy and HTML, so your site shows up on search engine results pages (SERP), and potential customers can find you quickly and easily. There’s no doubt that SEO works, but more and more businesses understand the value of supplementing that strategy with online advertising, specifically paid search engine ads.

With paid search – also known as Pay Per Click (PPC) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM ) – you pay to have your ad show up on the search engine results pages (SERPs). You base your ad on a particular set of keywords that people are using to search, and you pay each time someone clicks on your ad. Examples of paid search platforms include Google Ads (formerly known as Adwords), Facebook, Bing Ads, LinkedIn, Instagram, and more.

In 2017, $10.1 billion was invested in PPC by seven million advertisers, according to Social Media Today with Google Ads and Facebook as the clear market leaders in PPC spending. This comes as no surprise as Google reports that on average businesses make $2 for every $1 spent on AdWords, including increasing brand awareness by as much as 80%. Unbounce reports that PPC visitors are 50% more likely to purchase something than organic visitors.

So how can paid ads improve SEO? The impact of paid ads on SEO is indirect, but real. Here's how it works. Once a viewer has discovered your website through an ad, they are more likely to remember your business name and website. Therefore, the next time they search for your type of products or services, they will be more likely to click on your organic (non-paid) search listing. The more often someone clicks on your organic search listing, the more likely it is to move up in the organic rankings.

As with any type of marketing effort, you want to make sure that you’re getting the biggest bang for your buck.

Here are three strategies to save money on your pay-per-click advertising without impacting its effectiveness.

With paid search, it’s just as important to know what keywords or phrases don’t work as it is to understand which ones do, so you aren’t wasting money in areas that aren’t providing a return. Some keywords or phrases could actually cause you to lose money if people are clicking on your ad (costing you money) but not resulting in a sale.

With years of experience, Power Marketing International has learned how to research and develop a list of keywords that work for virtually any industry, and how to filter out keywords that don't work. Once you know what to filter out, you can eliminate them from your campaigns, allowing you to invest more in keywords and phrases that bring in new customers.

The goal of the paid search isn’t to just drive people to your website. It’s to encourage people to visit your site and take the desired action, whether that’s making a purchase, registering for an event, sharing their email address, etc. The percentage of people who go to your website and take your desired action is your conversion rate, and taking steps to increase that percentage rate is known as Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO)

The only way you can improve your conversion rates (and thereby enjoy a higher ROI on your PPC advertising) is to track your conversion rates and take measures to improve them. Steps to improve CRO can include determining metrics, testing, and analyzing the results.

Brand and brand-plus keywords are keywords used to search for your company. For example, for our company that would include keywords like "Power Marketing International" along with "PMI" and other iterations of it, including misspellings of and common typos. Many marketers would argue that including brand keywords in your PPC ads is a waste of money.

The argument is that people using those brand keywords will find your website without using PPC, but keep in mind that your competitors are free to bid on your brand keywords to steal traffic from you.

There are other reasons that using brand keywords in PPC advertising could make sense for your business; however, if you can avoid paying for those keywords, you can spend less money or invest it in keywords that will bring you a higher return on investment.

If you want to learn more about using the power of paid online advertising to attract new prospects to your website who are interested in your products or services, give Power Marketing International a call at 484-297-6395 or contact us online . Whether you are new to PPC advertising, or just want to do it right, we can help!