The Basics of Pay-Per-Click

Paid search may seem like a simple advertising model since most of us are familiar with the idea of companies paying established media channels to broadcast their promotions. While this isn't too far off the mark, the reality is that paid search advertising is a more complex process that involves acquiring specialized knowledge beforehand.?

Let’s examine the paid search method, this time through a specific lens: the WWU MBA program. Can the paid search advertising model help our MBA program gain more awareness among potential students???

Breaking down PPC

At its core, paid search advertising involves paying a fee for every impression your ad collects online. In paying this fee, you are ensuring that your content is prioritized higher on a search engine results page. This process is also called the Pay-Per-Click model, hence the abbreviation PPC. If your SEO needs work and you don’t know how to improve your organic search engine placement on a results page, then PPC may be the solution for you.?

In the context of the WWU MBA program, utilizing PPC may be the most effective tool for increasing awareness (and hopefully applications). Searching for MBA programs in Washington on Google results in a long list of schools that have paid for their top spots (indicated by the “Ad” text in bold). Schools like Washington State, Cornell, and Seattle University already seem to be using PPC, choosing not to rely on good SEO practices and instead cutting through the noise with paid search results. Paid search may be critical for WWU to compete. Optimizing your organic search placement can also be a long term process that doesn’t account for the short term goals of your organization.?

Alongside the obvious benefits of being at the top of the results page, paid search would be enormously helpful for WWU because of its inherent ability to track and measure accurate results, helping us understand where our efforts are working and where they need improvement. Paid search also doesn’t rely on the algorithm recognizing a website’s quality in order to be placed higher, meaning that the MBA program website can reach more potential students with a lower barrier to entry.?

Starting the Process?

There are three critical processes behind paid search: Keywords, landing pages, and advertisements.?

Keywords

Nailing the right keywords is vital for a successful paid search campaign. Neil Patel puts this best, arguing that “when people go to Google, they’re looking for something specific. That means that they have intent. They’re actively looking for something to buy.” This makes Google AdWords an effective tool for launching a WWU MBA program’s paid search campaign in the future. When a user has the intent of searching for a potential MBA program that’s right for them, marketers refer to these users as further down the purchasing funnel.?

One of the primary tools for this function is Google AdWords. This tool allows advertisers to bid on hot keywords that will direct more traffic towards their website. Furthermore, AdWords can help you identify which keywords are being used the most so that you can put your website center stage, in front of the right eyes.?

But in order to use AdWords correctly, you can’t treat it like an auction where the highest bid wins. Even if the WWU MBA program paid the most money for certain key search words, this alone does not guarantee that they’ll see their website at the top of the results page. Buying your way to the top is also contingent on the quality of your offer. Our MBA program should be bidding on specific and relevant terms that identify elements like geographics and offerings (to make this step easier, we would first need to compile significant research on potential target markets).?

To improve your quality score, it’s important to pay attention to:?

• How relevant your desired keywords are?
• How relevant the text in your advertisements are?
• The quality of your landing page

Landing Pages

A landing page is simply a dedicated page that users “land” on when they click on your ad. An effective landing page will heavily contribute towards conversions and lead generation. In many ways, the landing page is an advertisement itself, and it is important that users feel that they are deriving value from their first real exposure to your brand and offerings. For the WWU MBA program, this could mean:?

• Clear, informative, and relevant imagery and graphics?
• A questionnaire to customize the user experience?
• Testimonials and reviews of the program?
• Statistics and MBA results to boost credibility in the user’s eyes?

Advertisements

It’s time to build the ad. Google Ads is the most effective tool to use here, since it would generate the most results for the university and the MBA program. The ad’s focus on differentiation from competitors and repetition of unique brand elements will help increase awareness among students looking for accredited MBA programs to join.?

As the campaign launches, it will be critical for the WWU MBA to analyze the results of their PPC efforts, which is made easy nowadays due to our ability to directly attribute the results of our actions to the actions themselves. Using this data will help create better content and improve our strategy.?