PPC When To Use It?

PPC When To Use It?
By Vickie J. Scnalon

As everyone knows, PPC can be expensive if you do not do your research on how it works, how much it costs (versus how much you can afford to spend) and if it will benefit your website. If you do your research and prepare to use PPC it can be useful in the short term.

The Last Blog entry I discussed, covered the long-term benefits of SEO, this week's blog entry I'll discuss the short-term benefits of PPC for your website. But let's first begin with the definition, for those new to PPC.


PPC -what is it?

PPC is pay-per-click advertising. You pay the search engines for showing your ads on their search and content networks. The price is driven by: price per keyword and the price you want to pay on a daily basis. You set both, the daily budget and the price per click for your ads campaign. The success of your campaign will be, obviously, how many sales you make against the price you paid for the ads. So what are the benefits and drawbacks of PPC?


Benefits of PPC
Pay-Per-Click advertising does have it's benefits.

• Immediate exposure and sales if you find the right keyword combination and you construct the right ad that will give you the conversion you need.
• You can experiment with more than one ad and keyword combination. You are not limited by the number of keywords that you use.
• Keywords are more targeted to your web page/website
• Gives you traffic in the short term. If you are a new site this can help give your website quicker exposure on the Internet.
• Great for seasonal items or time sensitive promotions
• Great for feedback. (Translated-if your ads do not spark a click, you have a problem with your landing page, keywords, or ad(s)
• PPC is more goal driven. You can manipulate keywords and ads to help drive conversions
  

Drawbacks of PPC

Yes, there are drawbacks to Pay-per-click advertising. I know, I'm hearing the groaning now. But it's better to be aware, than to jump blindly into the PPC pool.

• PPC can continue only as long as your budget holds up
• PPC does not go across all search engines- it only hits the search engine that you are paying to show your ads
• Your PPC success is limited by your PPC knowledge
• If you don't know what you are doing, you can quickly lose your budget for the full year.

As you can see, PPC is a great way to get targeted traffic to your site in the short term. However, the major drawback is the price you have to pay to get that targeted traffic. If you want to try your hand with PPC, I'd suggest learning some of the ins and out of Pay-Per-Click Advertising, especially if you're on a tight budget.

If you want more information about PPC then check out my review of Definitive Guide To Google Adwords by Guru Perry Marshall.