Using PPC To Generate Leads

Using PPC To Generate Leads

October 7th, 2009 → 8:28 pm @ Richard

Would You Like More Traffic to Your Website?

Can Pay Per Click advertising (PPC) really help your business?  How does it work?

PPC advertising is a simple method of using search engines like Google to deliver qualified prospects to your website.  It is cost effective, simple to use and can be started with a very small budget.  This article is designed as a simple introduction to PPC advertising but if you would like more help in setting up your own PPC campaign, please check out our services page.

What is Pay Per Click Advertising?

Pay per click advertising is an online advertising model where you only pay when someone clicks on your advertisement and visits your site.  It doesn’t matter how many times people see your ad or how often it is displayed – if nobody clicks on it, you pay nothing.

The most common PPC advertising example is Google Adwords.  When you type something into Google it searches the web and then displays the pages it thinks are most relevant based on the terms you typed in (your keywords).  For example, if you type in ‘tropical fish’ it will give you a list of pages that use the term ‘tropical fish’ in order of relevance and importance.

There are lots of thing that you can do to get your website to the top of the list for keywords and phrases that are relevant to your business – you can find a good introduction to these in our free report on Search Engines in Plain English.

However, search engine optimization takes time and you might be up against some pretty big players.

Google’s PPC advertising lets you buy your way onto the first page of the results in the form of the small text advertisements that you see along the right hand side of the screen, and under the heading ‘sponsored results’.

How Does Pay Per Click Advertising Work?

Opening Your Account

To start a pay per click advertising campaign you will need to set up an account.  With Google, you can do that at the Adwords Sign Up Page. Once your account is opened you can create a simple text based advertisement – usually a headline plus two additional short lines, using select keywords, of course.

This is the ad that will be displayed next to your chosen search terms. You will also be able to select which countries your ad will be displayed in.  In fact, if you sell to a local market only you can even select a county or city.

Choosing Your Keywords

The next step is choosing the search terms that you want your ad to appear next to.  Using our tropical fish example, you might want to show up when someone searches for ‘tropical fish’ or ‘Japanese fighting fish’ or any number of terms.

Before you start typing them in, do your homework and find out the terms that people are searching for – Google has tools to help you do this.

Setting a Budget

The next step is to set a budget – both for the total amount that you are prepared to spend and the amount you are prepared to spend per click.  For example, there may be 10 businesses that would all like their ads displayed next to the term ‘tropical fish’.  So whose ad does Google put first in the list?  Google ranks the ads by combining two factors:

  1. The amount that each bidder is willing to pay
  2. PLUS the quality of the ad, and its relevance to the page it links to

You can decide how much you are prepared to ‘bid’ for your terms starting from a few cents.  Based on your business, select an amount that you are willing to pay – it can always to be changed later.  At this stage Google will show you your estimated position and the average number of people you will attract each day.  If you’ve ‘bid’ $0.10 per click for the term ‘tropical fish’ and attract 10 clicks per day, that’s means you will have spent $1 per day on your ads.  If nobody clicks you will have spent nothing.  Based on these estimates you can set the maximum amount that you want to spend in any day or month.  Once you have reached your budget your ads will simply stop getting displayed.

You will be charged by credit card or direct debit each month for the number of clicks you had.

A Few Quick PPC Tips

  • You should test lots of combinations of keywords and advertisements to get the best combination for your business
  • Make small changes so you can see how they affect your results
  • Don’t always link back to your home page. If ‘tropical fish’ is listed on another page, link there instead.
  • Start with a small budget and increase it as you get better at using PPC
  • General keywords (like ‘fish’) might be very competitive and so will be more expensive to bid on.  Try less obvious and more specific terms, possibly including your location if that is relevant (ex. ‘Tropical fish store in Boston’).
  • Use Google’s ‘negative keyword’ feature to make sure your ads are NOT displayed when people include certain words in their query, such as ‘Phish’ (the band), or ‘tropical storms’, etc.

What Next?

We Do It For You: If you’d like help setting up and tracking your PPC campaign, click here for more info about the lead generation services we provide

Do It Yourself: For more lead generation ideas, Download our free report

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