Small Business Pay Per Click Advertising

Get A FREE Local SEO Audit

Includes

  • Local Competitor Analysis
  • Analysis Of Your Website
  • Any Missed Opportunities
  • Free 20 Minute Consultation

What is pay per click advertising?

Small Business Pay Per Click Advertising

Small Business Pay Per Click Advertising

Small business pay per click advertising (often referred to as PPC) is the most common form of paid internet advertising.

PPC ads can most commonly be found at the top of search engine result pages such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc..

These ads are typically easy to identify on search engines because they are usually labeled with “sponsored” or “ad” to help distinguish the difference between paid and organic results.

However, PPC ads are not limited to just search engines, they are the main revenue source for many websites including everything from small blogs to major social media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube.

3 Main Types of Pay Per Click Ads

  1. Text Ads (as seen in search results)
  2. Image Ads (as seen on Facebook
  3. Video Ads (as seen on Youtube)

On blogs, these ads typically appear at the top or to the side of the page, but they can more commonly be found mixed into a page’s content.

On social media platforms you will see ads in the form of videos (Think Youtube Ads), images (Think Facebook Ads). These ads typically blend into the social media platforms content.

A great example of this would be how Facebook’s ads discretely blend into the user’s timeline (or more recently Facebooks messenger app).

Another great example would be how Youtube will show video ads before the before the content you are trying to watch. On some longer videos, ads will even pop up in the middle of the video like a commercial.

How Do PPC Ads work?

There are a few different ways pay per click ads can work, but ultimately they can be broken down into two basic categories.

  1. Set Price – this is by far the simplest and most straightforward method. Basically, you pay a set amount everytime someone clicks on your advertised link.
  2. Auction Ads – auction adds work a little differently were basically you compete with other advertisers for the highest bid.
  3. Auction + Relevance – this is the most complex but it is, in essence, the method that many search engines like Google use. With auction + relevance, the ad doesn’t necessarily go to the highest bidder but to the highest bidder who is the most relevant. This “relevancy” is determined through a complex automated algorithm. The reasoning behind this is that search engines still want to serve the most relevant content to users. For example, if you are running ads about cars but your site is actually about horses you probably won’t win very many auctions. With this method, you start to see an overlay with SEO & PPC because relevancy to the searchers intent is important.

The Advantage of PPC For Small Businesses

The advantages of pay per click advertising are simple.

  • You can “retarget” potential customers who have visited your site so seeing your ads everywhere they go online
  • You can set a daily or monthly limit based on the dollar amount you want to spend
  • You can usually turn the ads on and off as needed
  • Unlike traditional offline advertising, you are provided with very detailed performance analytics

The Difference Between PPC and SEO Marketing

PPC and SEO (search engine optimization) are almost polar opposites.

Local Business SEO Services

Local Business SEO Services

SEO

SEO is the practice of making your site meet criteria that the search engines are looking for so your site will perform well organically (FREE search results) in the search engines.

Basically, the idea is that your site will show up near the top of the search results on page #1 organically for free.

Pros:  The results from SEO are typically more long term as they often continue to hold their position months and years after SEO work has stopped.

Cons:  SEO is a more mid to long-term strategy that usually requires a lot of up-front work before you start seeing results.

PPC

On the other hand, PPC produces very instantaneous results (or at least until you stop paying for the ads).

You could literally start an ad campaign and begin receiving clicks and calls within 5 or 10 minutes.

Pros:  Quick Results

Cons:  PPC ads are only good while you are paying for ads. The moment you stop paying, your PPC traffic will come to a screeching halt.

How They Complement Each Other

SEO and PPC actually complement each other very well. One provides very quick short-term results while the other provides more stable long-term results.

If planed and optimized properly, PPC campaigns can be run while SEO campaigns are being implemented ensuring an ROI from day one on your digital marketing. Combine SEO with paid search ads this is often referred to as SEM (search engine marketing).

On the other side of that coin, SEO will often help you win paid search engine ads like in Google and Bing where the PPC is based on an auction.

Good SEO may even help you beat out competing ads for less money because your site appears more relevant.

And if you can dominate both the paid and organic search results you stand the highest chance of getting the most traffic from customers eager for your product or service. The more real estate you can cover on page #1 the more credible you will look and the higher chance you will have of recieving clicks and phone calls.

How to get the most out of your Pay Per Click Advertising Campaigns

  1. Have the proper foundation before you start running ads – Your website needs to be properly set up to track and convert this traffic or you will be wasting money on ads. Most people make the mistake of sending traffic to their homepage when they should have a specific landing page designed for each specific ad campaign. As an example, if you are a plumber and your ad is for water heater repair you wouldn’t want to send that traffic to a generic home page but rather a landing page specifically about water heater repair.
  2. Fine tune your ads – PPC ads are not a once and done, they need to be studied, tweaked and dialed in like a fine-tuned race car. Every business is different and every market is a little different. User behaviors and habits can change dramatically within only a few hundred miles geographically. If these ads are not properly dialed in and continually monitored, chances are that you will be throwing a percentage of your ad money away.

To discuss your next small business pay per click advertising campaign get in touch below!

Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!