Should you invest your time, energy and money into organic SEO or PPC advertising? A good small business marketing strategy integrates both! Inbound marketing is about nurturing the customer through the journey to purchase. Paid search is a strategic element of that journey. Read on to learn more about how paid search grows your business.
With the New Year in full session, this is a great time to evaluate your digital marketing and formulate a plan of attack for the rest of the year. With the internet constantly in a state of flux, it may seem difficult to create a plan that can possibly be viable for the months ahead, but basic principles of inbound marketing remain constant, allowing you to make basic marketing decisions in advance. As you assess internet marketing strategies to help your small business grow in 2015, pay careful consideration to paid search, as it will likely be one of many methods you can use to significantly boost leads.
Paid search allows you to be there when your customers are looking for you.
A cross-platform report from Nielson reveals the average American adult spends 11 hours each day with electronic media, with at least two hours spent browsing the internet. Proper placement of your pay-per-click advertisement ensures that you are there when those people are online doing searches. In fact, clicks on paid search listings beat out organic listings by nearly a 2:1 margin for keywords with high commercial intent in the US.
Paid search goes hand-in-hand with SEO
IF your SEO efforts are not netting a top ranking position on the front page of search results, PPC can help. While your placement in the paid search results is based on many factors, including your bidding for cost-per-click, Ad rank, quality score and budget, your website's presence in both organic and paid listings suggest you are more relevant.
Paid search allow you to reach a wider, or narrower, audience
PPC advertising allows you to reach a specific audience. Whether you want to reach a broad group of people, or a niche demographic in a geo-specific area, you are able to tailor your settings to place your advertisement in front of the people who need to see it most. Facebook ads allow you to reach an even more specific group of consumers with their targeting tools. Both PPC and Facebook ads are perfect for small businesses with limited budgets or specific targeting needs.
Paid search can amplify other marketing efforts
Your business will make contact with a customer several times before they ever make a purchase. Whether they visit your website directly multiple times, see a post from your social media channels, or actually speak with someone from your business, each touch brings a lead closer to conversion. A paid advertisement is just one more touch that can reach your lead. Paid search also gives you another outlet to capture your potential customer at any point in the sales funnel. In addition, Google offers several features to make your internet marketing more effective, including:
- Display Ad builder
- Layering Demographic Targeting
- Automation
- AdWords Reporting
- AdWords Extensions
- Advanced Location Options
- Lightbox Ads
- Dynamic Product Ads
Paid search messaging can be changed quickly
When you start paid search, you create a targeted message with a call to action that is intended to convert your audience. However, if you need to redirect your efforts or revise your message, you can easily do so. Even if your business has products with constantly changing prices, paid search tools like ad customizers can automatically change your ads in real time to reflect more updated information.
With the proper keyword bidding strategy and great landing pages for your ads to convert visitors, you can get a head start over your competition this year and boost your business growth. At CyberMark, we know that small business owners have a lot on their plate, and adding PPC and landing page optimization can be a burden. This is why we offer affordable PPC management and web design services to help you grow. To see how we can bring you more business with paid search, contact us today for a free internet marketing consultation.
