There are many ways to market your online business, including content marketing, email marketing, viral and social network marketing, and advertising. With advertising, you can either use free classifieds or directories, or paid advertising. So if there's free advertsing available, why should you bother with paying for it?
Well, many free classified and directory websites will need customers to visit their sites before they will be shown your ad. This often relies on potential customers knowing which websites to go to, which is risky. Your free ad could get lost!
It's worth linking up with the search engines, particularly Google, as it's so well-known and frequently used. With PPC advertising, your ad will go to the customer, and what's more, it will be shown to them when they are already searching for something similar or relevant to what you're promoting. On a Google search engine results page (SERP), the paid and PPC adverts appear across the top in the pink/orange strip, as well as down the right hand side/column on each SERP.
But Google PPC (called Google Adwords) is known to be expensive, and not for the small-fry! As I was lucky enough to get a 75 Google Adwords voucher, I decided to check it out, to see what all the fuss is about. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that you can limit your monthly spend (I think 30 per month is the minimum). (At the time of writing, the Pound/Dollar exchange rate is around 1 = $1.51).
When you set up a Google Adwords account, and you can use your Google email details to do so, you link your bank details to the account, because Google will draw on this if your Adwords fund falls below a certain minimum. But you get to set the monthly spend limit, the cost per click (CPC) limits (which can be as low as around 0.50 per click), and the daily spend limits, so you do have control.
Then you get to write your ad. It's short (three lines of text of 35 characters each, plus a website link), so it's worth thinking carefully, and possibly trialling a few versions to see which have a better click rate. You also need to ensure you link it well with relevant search keywords (the keywords internet users will be typing into Google when looking for information), and to relevant keywords/content on your linked website, as apparently you may be penalized if linked keywords are irrelevant.
There is a Keyword Tool to help suggest relevant search keywords to link your advert to, and also to manage your linked keywords. It will tell you if your default cost per click is too low to list your ad on the front page of the SERP, and it will suggest a range of costs per click and the associated impressions/showings you can expect to get at those costs. You can choose to increase the cost per click for just that keyword, and keep all the other keywords' costs per clicks at the original level. Or you can disable certain keywords if they are too expensive for you.
Obviously with a lower cost per click and monthly spend, you are not going to get as many impressions/showings as a larger company with thousands or even millions in their PPC budget. For this reason, and if relevant to your business/types of stock, you have the option to link your ad to localized searches, by specifying the number of miles/kilometres from your business address. This means it's more likely your ad will be shown on the front pages of local SERPs (eg. "Aloe Vera supplier Hertfordshire"), rather than global SERPs (eg. "Aloe Vera supplier"), and your costs per click for local keywords are likely to be less expensive.
I hope this article has highlighted some advantages and disadvantages of advertising via Google PPC. If you need any further information, about this or other Internet Marketing topics, please see my websites in the Resource Box. My contact details, plus a wealth of useful information, appears on these websites.
Well, many free classified and directory websites will need customers to visit their sites before they will be shown your ad. This often relies on potential customers knowing which websites to go to, which is risky. Your free ad could get lost!
It's worth linking up with the search engines, particularly Google, as it's so well-known and frequently used. With PPC advertising, your ad will go to the customer, and what's more, it will be shown to them when they are already searching for something similar or relevant to what you're promoting. On a Google search engine results page (SERP), the paid and PPC adverts appear across the top in the pink/orange strip, as well as down the right hand side/column on each SERP.
But Google PPC (called Google Adwords) is known to be expensive, and not for the small-fry! As I was lucky enough to get a 75 Google Adwords voucher, I decided to check it out, to see what all the fuss is about. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that you can limit your monthly spend (I think 30 per month is the minimum). (At the time of writing, the Pound/Dollar exchange rate is around 1 = $1.51).
When you set up a Google Adwords account, and you can use your Google email details to do so, you link your bank details to the account, because Google will draw on this if your Adwords fund falls below a certain minimum. But you get to set the monthly spend limit, the cost per click (CPC) limits (which can be as low as around 0.50 per click), and the daily spend limits, so you do have control.
Then you get to write your ad. It's short (three lines of text of 35 characters each, plus a website link), so it's worth thinking carefully, and possibly trialling a few versions to see which have a better click rate. You also need to ensure you link it well with relevant search keywords (the keywords internet users will be typing into Google when looking for information), and to relevant keywords/content on your linked website, as apparently you may be penalized if linked keywords are irrelevant.
There is a Keyword Tool to help suggest relevant search keywords to link your advert to, and also to manage your linked keywords. It will tell you if your default cost per click is too low to list your ad on the front page of the SERP, and it will suggest a range of costs per click and the associated impressions/showings you can expect to get at those costs. You can choose to increase the cost per click for just that keyword, and keep all the other keywords' costs per clicks at the original level. Or you can disable certain keywords if they are too expensive for you.
Obviously with a lower cost per click and monthly spend, you are not going to get as many impressions/showings as a larger company with thousands or even millions in their PPC budget. For this reason, and if relevant to your business/types of stock, you have the option to link your ad to localized searches, by specifying the number of miles/kilometres from your business address. This means it's more likely your ad will be shown on the front pages of local SERPs (eg. "Aloe Vera supplier Hertfordshire"), rather than global SERPs (eg. "Aloe Vera supplier"), and your costs per click for local keywords are likely to be less expensive.
I hope this article has highlighted some advantages and disadvantages of advertising via Google PPC. If you need any further information, about this or other Internet Marketing topics, please see my websites in the Resource Box. My contact details, plus a wealth of useful information, appears on these websites.
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