Chapter 3
In This Chapter
Buying pay per click ads can be a useful part of your overall search engine optimization strategy. Pay per click ads are paid ads that appear in a Sponsored Links section on a search results page (the site owners have negotiated with the search engine to display the search results page when a user searches for certain keywords). Pay per click ads can complement the work you’re doing to move your listing up in the organic results (the normal search results). And because it’s relatively fast to set up pay per click ads, they can be an easy way to jump-start your website’s performance in search results.
To buy a pay per click ad, go to the chosen search engine’s paid search website (we cover these sites in Book I, Chapter 4) and bid on a particular keyword phrase for which you want your ad to appear. From then on, the search engine tracks how many times people click your ad and bills you monthly for the total clicks. Generally, the highest bidders are awarded the top positions on the search results (though with Google, some relevance factors do affect the order). For more information on buying pay per click ads, you can pick up a copy of Pay Per Click Search Engine Marketing For Dummies, by Peter Kent (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.). In this chapter, you learn why these ads are useful to your search engine optimization efforts and how to use them to build your brand and reduce your cost of conversion.
You can use pay per click (PPC) ads to provide clues that help you optimize your website for organic results, such as
What’s nice about using PPC ads for this kind of research is that you can test ads scientifically. (Note: It’s difficult to set up scientific tests of keywords in the natural search rankings because the search engine’s methods are largely a secret and their algorithms are constantly in flux.) With PPC ads, you can control which ads appear for which keywords, and you can set up comparison tests. For example, you could test
The various statistics and analytical tools offered by Google AdWords and Bing Ads are a nice benefit to purchasing paid ads through these search engines. The data you collect through them helps you refine your website’s theme(s) and keywords. In turn, this knowledge helps you improve your site’s ranking in organic search results, as well as paid results, by targeting better keywords for your pages.
Be aware that pay per click data does not necessarily represent how the same keywords would behave in natural search results; it only provides clues. However, it’s a step in the right direction. Organic search engine optimization can take months of trial and error to produce results. By comparison, a pay per click campaign benefits you immediately with listings placed on the first page of search results, an increase in traffic, and some useful data. These benefits can help start your SEO efforts off quickly and give you some good indications of what might be the best keywords for your site.
You want your company name to be seen and recognized in your industry without becoming generic — that’s branding. When you think Nike, you think of a lifestyle, not merely a pair of running shoes. When your company is branded, it becomes a search keyword all by itself. Successful branding associates you with your particular industry so tightly that you're nearly synonymous. The key word here is nearly, of course. You don't want to have your brand name become so watered down that you lose control of how people use it. For instance, when you sneeze, do you reach for a tissue or a Kleenex? When you need a paper copied, do you photocopy it or Xerox it? A recent brand struggling with this problem is Google. It's been fighting to remind people that you're not “Googling your blind date,” you're “performing a search on your blind date by using Google.” Walking that line is probably a long way down the road for most businesses, however.
You can build awareness of your brand instantly by purchasing pay per click ads. Every time your company name shows up visibly in search results for a particular search query, it helps to build your brand. If your business is selling classic custom cars, you can make your name appear on search results for [classic custom cars] simply by bidding for that keyword phrase with the search engines. Although you might need to do months of search engine optimization work to bring your listing up to the first page in the natural search results, pay per click ads give you a way to increase your branding right away.
When you're building your brand name, make sure your brand goes first in the Title tags on your website. For example, a page on our company site could have a Title tag that looks like this:
<title>Bruce Clay, Inc. - Search Engine Optimization Services</title>.
Pay per click ads let you easily test different keywords. Write your ads by using good marketing copy that’s highly relevant to the keyword phrase you’re bidding on in a search engine’s paid search. After you’ve accomplished that, you can find out which keywords yield the most click-throughs (when people click the link) and conversions (when people not only visit your site, but also buy what you offer). Conversely, you can weed out those keywords that have low click-through and conversion rates.
After all, just being listed on a search results page is of little value if people don’t click through to your site. With pay per click ads, you can find out which search terms work best at generating the kind of traffic you need. Broad search terms such as [cars] are probably not a good place to put your ad money. First of all, these types of broad terms are heavily searched, which makes the bidding for them more competitive. The per-click cost for a broad term would be very high (measured by price per click times traffic) and might not be worth it. Also, although [cars] is searched frequently, the click-through rate is very low. Even if someone does click your listing and visit your site, broad search queries tend to have low conversion rates because the people usually are just seeking general information and not ready to take action, such as making a purchase.
You want keywords that specifically draw people to your site and result in conversions. Here are a few facts you can keep in mind:
When choosing good keywords for your site, keep in mind the long-tail effect we cover in Book I, Chapter 5. The long tail is a statistical concept that says items in comparatively low demand can nonetheless add up to quite large volumes. The idea is that longer, more specific keyword phrases may not get a lot of traffic, but when people do search for them, the likelihood of click-through and conversion is quite high. Take our classic custom cars website example. A long-tail keyword phrase such as [1965 Ford Mustang GT] might make an excellent keyword phrase for a pay per click ad linked right to the Ford Mustang page on the website. Although the phrase might not get searched very often, someone typing in this search query would probably be a serious shopper — or, at the very least, will find exactly what she’s looking for on your web page.
You want to purchase long-tail keyword phrases for pay per click ads for several reasons:
If you have ads that people aren’t clicking, the keyword might not be the problem. A low click-through rate could be due to a number of factors:
Because there are several variables, it may be difficult to pinpoint exactly why a given ad has a low click-through rate. You can actually learn more from ads with high click-through rates than you can from those that under-perform. If you’ve found a winning combination of ad copy and relevant keyword terms and it’s bringing the right kind of traffic to your website, you have marketing gold. By all means, apply the same types of keywords to your website to improve your organic search engine optimization, as well.
Pairing your search-engine-optimization work with a pay per click campaign often yields the best results. Don’t do just one or the other. If you have the budget, doing both organic SEO and pay per click together is the best strategy.
Research supports the use of PPC ads, in addition to organic search results, that rank for your targeted keywords. If your company name appears in two places on the results page, you get higher impact and brand awareness — and more clicks on both the ad and the listing — than you would if only one appeared in the results. Studies have shown that when your company listing appears in the organic results and in a paid ad on the first results page, people get the impression that your company is an expert. As a result, they click your organic listing far more often than they would if no pay per click ad appeared. See Figure 3-1 for an example of a search ad paired with an organic ranking.
In addition to perceived expertise and more click-throughs, your company earns better brand recognition by appearing in two places on the search results page. And on a practical level, your site also controls more real estate on the page — leaving less room for competitors.
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