Pay-Per-Click Search Marketing

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Traffic | SEO | PPC | CPC | More

Traffic, Traffic, Traffic

When store owners say "location, location, location", website owners say "search, search, search".   Both are talking about traffic.

A beautiful, well-stocked store in a desert won't stay open, and the most wonderful website in the world needs to get found before it can sell. Store owners get traffic by locating themselves along strip malls or downtowns, or by advertising their locations on radio and billboards.

Online buyers use search engines to start the buying process. Web owners get traffic with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click Advertising (PPC).

SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has two parts: making pages relevant to keywords (a.k.a "on-page"), and building links to those pages to reinforce those keywords ("off-page"). SEO is about getting your website to show up on the left hand side of Google - where it lists sites it considers most relevant to the search terms entered.

The top link on a search result for a well-chosen keyword phrase, all other things being equal, is the first one visited; therefore, position on a Search Engine Results Page (SERP) is key. After that, the domain name (brand), page title and page description (meta-tag) help the buyer decide whether to click or move down-list.

Physics tells us that no two web pages can occupy the same SERP position at the same time. It takes a lot of time and work to keep a prime location when there is heavy competition. That's where PPC ads in the "Sponsored Links" section come in.

PPC

With Google Adwords and other "pay per click" ads, an advertiser's website can show up immediately on page one without any linkbuilding or on-page SEO. PPC ads appear in different areas of Search Engine Result Pages than standard listings. You've probably noticed two differences:

  • PPC ads are shorter than unpaid ("organic") listings.
  • PPC ads show up as "sponsored links" on the right (and a few on top), with a colored background.

Your PPC ad could show up on the top of all page-one ads for your best search phrase an hour from now

  • if your ad is relevant to the keywords you picked to show up for, and
  • if you offered to pay enough for each click based on those keywords.

What you pay when people click on your PPC ad is determined by the keyword your ad shows up for, and is called Cost Per Click (CPC).

CPC: Too High?

Your goal is to show up on page one for the best keyword for your product or service, and as high up on page one as possible so people click on your ad rather than your competitors.

  • The good news: regardless of how many times your PPC ad is displayed on search results (each display is called an "impression"), you are only charged if the ad is clicked.
  • The bad news: there is no way to know ahead of time what clicks are going to cost you.

Google's goal is to have as many people bidding on those keywords as possible, to drive the cost higher. CPC for popular keywords is based on an ongoing auction among bidders for those keywords. Google says your Cost Per Click (CPC) for a page-one position depends on:

  • the competition for the keywords you choose (there is a very wide range)
  • the relevance of the text in the page your ad links to. This page (or sequence of pages) is called a "Landing Page".

Are you paying too much per click to get people to your Landing Pages?

That depends on your margin for each sale, the CPC for the keywords you chose, and the likelihood those Landing Pages will turn into sales.

All these numbers are available from Google, and here's how you read them.