3 Tips on How to Use Pay Per Click (PPC)

How does PPC Work?

As much as we may think we are, not all of us are web guru’s – bottom line is we know what we want but most of us find it difficult to achieve or don’t know how to achieve it.
Don’t worry you’re not alone there are plenty of people in the same boat as you who are trying their best to get ranked on Google and increase website traffic to in turn drive sales.  We all know how difficult it can be to organically get ranked on Google, it mainly involves an immense amount of knowledge of SEO.
So what is Pay Per Click (PPC)? it is an economic and efficient way to drive traffic to your website in a simple yet effective form of internet marketing.  PPC can be an amazing marketing tool for getting ranked highly on search engines, providing you are using the correct keywords,  This in turn can get you ranked at a fast pace and generate new leads driving traffic to your website.
So how does it work? Google lists ads for your website at the top of search result pages with the budget you have given them.  What’s the catch? There is a Cost Per Click (CPC) associated within your budget, meaning each time someone clicks on your ad from an organic search you will pay the current CPC from your budget.  Once your budget has been consumed, Google will no longer run your ads until you reload your budget.  Bearing in mind you can set budgets daily, weekly and monthly, although it is more likely that you will be setting daily budgets if you are managiing correctly and continuously.
Although PPC is a simple and effective form of internet marketing, it can also be disastrous if done incorrectly.  You need to grasp the knowledge and basic understandings before proceeding in this direction.  If you want to launch an effective PPC Campaign then you have come to the right place, we have listed the 3 most relevant tips needed to increase website traffic.
 

1. Create Goals for your PPC Campaign

   There are 3 main questions that you should be answering in order to run a successful PPC Campaign which results in a drive in website traffic:
   Q1. Who is your target?
   The main goal here is to be thinking along the same trail of thought as the visitors you are trying to attract.  You should be carefully selecting keywords, making sure to cautiously select ad text that your desired audience would be searching for.  In order to attract the right type of visitors and guarantee a valuable user experience you need to ensure that your landing page aligns with the selective keywords and ad text that you have chosen.
   Q2. What is your desired outcome?
   It is amazing how many people set up a PPC Campaign without having any idea what they want their targeted audience to do once they have clicked on the ad.  You need to remember that this is a paid search, you don’t want people to unnecessarily be clicking your ads without a desired outcome – that will get expensive fast.   Think about what you want your target audience to do once they have clicked on your ad.  A great way to keep focused is to create a “call to action” on your landing page – this will initiate visitors to this desired outcome.
   Q3. How will you know the PPC Campaign is a success?
   If you don’t set up a way to measure the success of your PPC Campaign – is it even worth doing?  Google analytics is a great software tool to use to measure your visitor count, this tool allows you to track URLs in order to analyse paid search traffic.  Over time you will be able to analyse specific keywords to identify which ones you want to keep and which ones you may want to pause.

2. Establish an Easy Campaign Structure

   There is nothing worse than over complicating your PPC Campaign – Whether you know much about PPC or not it is quite often that people tend to overthink things, due to the nature of trying to make sure their campaign is absolutely perfect.  You need to remember that as time goes on the desired effect you want may change hence you need to focus on what you want as an outcome in that moment rather than as a whole.
   To keep this in mind there are 2 words that you should always remember when setting up your PPC Campaign:
   1. Relevance: There are thousands of  keywords that you could use, ensure to group these together into smaller groups.  Go through each keyword with a fine tooth-comb and make sure they are appropriate to your ad text.2. Simplicity: we cannot stress this enough, do not over complicate it! The more complicated you make your campaign the more complicated and stressful you make it for yourself to manage on a daily basis.  For your campaign to be effective you need to ensure it is manageable, don’t forget that you will be checking for inadequacies on a daily basis.

3. Check your PPC Settings in Google Adwords

   Google Adwords is devised into 2 networks, these are categorised as “Search Network” and “Display “Network”. They are both quite simple really:Search Network: Advertising on this network simply means your business ad will be placed amongst search engine related results at the appropriate time.Display Network: Advertising on this network means your business ad will be displayed across a network of partner sites such as AOL.com.
   It is important that you check your settings as by default Google Adwords is automatically selected for “Display Network”, now whilst this is an option available to you, it is often considered best to opt out of the Display Network especially if you are working with a controlled budget.  Your budget can quickly be reduced due to your ad being displayed across multiple sites and be very noneffective if you have not carefully selected the right type keywords for this type of Adword campaign.
   Google Adwords also has a feature for Local Searches which should be taken advantage of especially if your business is localised or for a specific geographic location.  Something to note is again as with Display Network, Google Adwords will automatically by default set your campaign to live nationally.  If you want it to be more specific be sure to change this feature.

These 3 tips on getting started with Google Adwords marketing for your business will hopefully get you well on your way to gaining an understanding of how it works.  We will be delving into this topic A LOT more over the next few weeks so be sure to check out our next instalment.
If you’d prefer to let the experts handle it then head on over to our Pay Per Click (PPC) services and pricing section or get in touch to speak to a London based PPC expert at Strategic SEO.