To hear some self-proclaimed SEO experts speak about it, pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is all a company needs to succeed online. Just build keyword-rich ads, put them in the right places, and you are all set to go. Yet any company that makes a living offering PPC services knows better. PPC has its place, but it should never make up the bulk of a company’s online marketing.
Salt Lake City’s Webtek Digital Marketing sees PPC advertising as just one tool in a box filled with many tools. When used the right way, PPC services can help improve a company’s reach. But by their nature, PPC ads are limited in production value. Companies need a lot more from their online marketing strategies.
PPC in Simple Terms
Small business owners tend to shy away from PPC because they do not quite understand what it is. The simplest way to explain it is to say that PPC advertising is a way to combine traditional paid ads with online clicks. You get the power of paid advertising without spending money on an audience you are not effectively reaching.
The PPC model gets its name from its payment structure. Rather than forking out several hundred dollars for an ad that might run for a week, you build ads around certain keywords. You bid on a price for those keywords as well. Let us say you are the highest bidder for one of your keywords at $1.
You go ahead and build an ad around that keyword and wait for Google, Facebook, or whatever platform you have chosen to display the ad. If no one clicks on it, you pay nothing. On the other hand, you pay $1 every time it does get clicked. The benefit here is twofold:
- You only pay when your advertisement actually reaches someone, and
- The amount you pay over a given period offers instant feedback about how your ads are performing.
These two points are what make PPC services so valuable in the grand scheme of things. They are cost-efficient and the instant feedback you get can prove invaluable to future marketing. But again, they should not make up the bulk of your online marketing strategy.
PPC As a Traffic Driver
The biggest downside with PPC ads is that they don’t always generate the desired traffic. You can put a ton of research into keywords in hopes of building the most attractive ads. But at the end of the day, your ads still might not get as much action as organic search results.
Statistics continually show that more than 50% of all internet traffic is generated by organic search results. It is foolish to put a lot of money into PPC and expect it to be your main traffic driver. Things just don’t work that way.
PPC vs. Quality Content
A final thing to consider about PPC advertising is that it is exclusively sales oriented. These days, you need more than sales copy to do well online. You also have to give people a reason to visit your website and follow your brand. Webtek says the best way to do that is to develop a solid content marketing strategy.
Quality content can do more for your online reach than PPC advertising. The traffic you get from PPC ads tends to be one-off traffic. On the other hand, quality content can generate long-term return traffic. That is what you need to succeed online.
PPC has its place. But remember, if PPC services make up the bulk of your online marketing strategy, you are selling yourself short. Don’t do it.