The Pay-Per-Click Debate

pay-per-clickPay-per-click advertising is used to direct traffic to websites, with advertisers only paying the website owner when a visitor clicks on an advert.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC), allows businesses to target audiences searching for specific key words and phrases related to their business. Your potential customers will be utilising search engines to conduct research on products/services you provide before committing to purchase. Understanding your target audience will help you target your advertising to increase traffic.

With PPC advertising, you are paying to guarantee your website’s ranking at the top of the returned search engine results. There is an argument for and against the use of PPC advertising, Cyber Sushi Design put you in the picture below:

On the Plus Side

  1. Quick to Implement – It takes a couple of hours to implement PPC advertising, using search engines such as Google. Simply create an advert and bid for your key words and phrases to ensure your advert is returned in search engine results. Your bid, if it’s the highest, will ensure your advert appears in the search results for your specified phrase. When someone clicks on your advert, you will be charged your bid amount, so be sure to know your budget
  2. Positioning – The conversion rate of visitors into customers through PPC adverts located in the “Sponsored Links” section of a search engine is 2.06% in contrast to 1.26% through SEO
  3. Choice of Words – PPC adverts allow you to utilise words you wouldn’t usually include in your website content e.g. you could bid on a competitor’s company name to ensure your advert was returned when a search for that company is initiated
  4. Target Audience – PPC advertising allows you to specify regions in which you conduct business, to ensure your advert appears to the relevant audience
  5. Simple Settings – It’s easy to log in and ramp up or slow down activity in the peaks and troughs you identify for your business. You can also simply alter adverts, your budget, keywords etc

On the Down Side

  1. Quality – Google have introduced a quality score, which determines the minimum cost per click you will pay for an advert to appear. Google decide if your landing page content is relevant enough for the keywords you have selected. Low quality scores enable Google to increase the minimum bid you pay
  2. Positioning – PPC adverts appear in the “Sponsored Links” section of search results, many people are sceptical of these and prefer to access the organic results that are returned
  3. Ending a PPC Advert – If you run out of budget or cancel an advert, the advert will be removed and traffic to your site will decrease, meaning you will again be reliant on organic search results
  4. Small Businesses – It is easy for large businesses to outbid you on key phrases and also drive up the value of popular words and phrases, meaning they could blow your budget before you’ve even started
  5. Paying Per Click – Each time someone clicks on your advert you are committed to paying the amount you bid for the keywords or phrase – this is irrelevant of whether the visitor becomes a customer or not

Can’t make up your mind, which side of the fence you sit on? Cyber Sushi Design specialise in the more organic form of internet marketing, utilising Search Engine Optimisation. For more information about appearing in the all important search engine results contact Cyber Sushi Design on 01494 356 778 or email info@cybersushi.co.uk.