What is PPC? (Pay-per-click)

If SEO is not bringing visitors to your website, then pay for them to notice you on the internet. How do you pay? Using the Pay per Click options.

What is Pay per Click (PPC)?

It is a way of advertising in which the advertiser pays the search engine a set amount for placing their ad on the topmost part of the search engine result page (SERP).

When you are searching on the internet the first few results on the SERPs are ads. They are marked with a yellowish icon written “Ad”. When a visitor clicks on this Ad, which directs them to a website, the advertiser pays an amount of money to the search engines.

How it works.

This is a complex way of advertising although the final results are impressive. Let’s simplify the mystery behind the PPC advertising.

Search engines like google, yahoo, Bing among others have a very complex system of choosing who appears on their limited advertising space. To sort out many advertisers who are advertising on the limited space, the search engines use the following criteria;

-Keywords.

Advertisers start by specifying the keywords that they want the search engines to consider. The keywords are words or phrases that a user may type or speak to the search engines search box. It’s like a question that the search engines have to answer. Keywords are the biggest influencers.

-Payment.

After carefully selecting the keywords, the advertiser will then specify the amount they wish to pay for each click on their ad. There is no fixed amount and the advertiser can pay lower or higher rates. Higher rates don’t necessarily guarantee higher ranking and lower rates don’t divert the search engines from your site.

-Auction.

It’s time for Google to choose the highest bidder. No, the website to rank higher. During the auction process, to major components are used. The maximum bid amount plus the quality score. The maximum bid is calculated by considering the Cost Per Click (CPC).

The quality score is calculated based of on three major things; the relevance of your website to the question that the user is asking in a query box, how much people interact with your website after a search and then click through to your website. This is known as the Click Through Rate (CTR).

These two factors are used to influence the direction of the auction. A higher quality score has more influence than the bid amount you place. A quality ad from a quality website will rank higher even if the bid placed is low. An ad from a website that does not have a quality score will rank lower even if they have placed a higher bid.

This complex functions by search engines are automatic. This means you have to be very accurate in your PPC campaign.

Advantages of PPC.

-Growth.

This is, without doubt, the most potent reason why you need a PPC campaign. Content marketing is a must in today’s world. With a PPC Ad, you realize the goals that you have set. Do you want to drive sales? Signups? Downloads? PPC will definitely help you in achieving these and more.

-Transparent.

It is very easy to track the PPC campaign statistics. This will include tracking clicks, conversions, and impressions. This is possible through google analytics. You will be able to see the ROI on the budget you set.

-No algorithm change.

Google occupies 60% of the search engines space. It will be advisable, therefore, to put more efforts on PPC ads on Google than any other search engine. Having said this, Google continuously upgrades its search algorithm which affects how websites are crawled and indexed. This algorithm change does not affect the PPC advertising campaigns giving you less to worry about.

-More customers.

Today, the easier you can be found online, the more business is headed your way. A large amount of website visitor’s click on the first two website links on the SERPs. Additionally, before customers purchase from your local store, they search it first on the internet.

If you feature on top of the SERPs, there is a very high percentage they will convert to sales giving you a tighter hold of the local customers.

-A stronger brand.

Customers and site visitors assume a strong brand depending on how well the brand is represented online. And not just online, where exactly it ranks on the search engines. The higher the rank the stronger it is assumed to be.

With PPC Ad campaign you rank among the first few on the SERPs giving your customers confidence that you have what they are looking for.

It’s not all roses, PPC has disadvantages.

-Cost.

Unlike other ways of getting customers and traffic to your site, PPC ads must be paid. The amount depends on what you want to pay per click plus the duration you want the campaign to run.

-It doesn’t last forever.

Your PPC campaign ends when your account or the set budget is depleted. This may prove costly in the long run. Visitors who visited your site through the PPC ads are gone when the campaign ends.

-It’s complicated.

Pulling out a successful PPC campaign on your own is very unlikely.

The complex twists and turns involved can only be handled by a digital agency. The agency has the experience and expertise required to help you realize a ROI. It will guide you on the best approach to take, the ideal amount you should place on the bids, the amount of time it should run etc.

A digital agency will help you in tracking the PPC campaign and changing it depending on real time results.

Conclusion.

In digital marketing, SEO and PPC are a good combination to bring in the much-needed benefits for both corporations, medium and small businesses. By targeting the audience at the right places on the search engines, the results will be tremendous.

With the help of a digital agency, you can get conversions and traffic whether it’s a B2B, B2C or any other setting you are looking for traffic.

Isaac (Ishaq Mustaqim)

Media & Local Business Growth Specialist

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