Search Engine Marketing and PPC Advertising

When formulating an advertising campaign nowadays, search engine marketing (SEM) has become a very important, and arguably necessary, component for both small and big businesses alike.  The fact that almost 20 BILLION dollars was spent by North American advertisers in 2012 on SEM should be an obvious indicator that this type of digital marketing is one of the best ways to attract customers to your product or business.  Many people even go as far to describe SEM as being revolutionary due to it’s effectiveness in which it generates leads/sales for their business.

The most well known type of search engine marketing is called pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.  It is the most widely used form of SEM due to it’s ease of use and cost effectiveness.  So, what is it exactly?  Whenever you do a search on Google, Bing, or Yahoo and see the results, at the top of every page you will see several links with sponsored ads.  These are ads that businesses have paid for in order to be listed at the top of specific search results.  They are listed above the organic search results that rely on search engine optimization (Appnet also offers this type of service in addition to SEM and they are a great supplement to one another).  In essence, this what search engine marketing is.  You pay money to show up at the top of search results.

 

What are the benefits to SEM and PPC advertising?

 

IMMEDIATE RESULTS

When you pay to advertise your product or business, there is no waiting to make it to the front page.  With traditional SEO tactics, it takes time to do this.  You have to create a good amount of relevant, quality content over weeks and months.  With SEM, you can create a campaign and then make it to the front page within the hour!

FIND YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE AUTOMATICALLY

With traditional advertising, you have to specify where and when you want your ads to show up.  This can be a difficult process as you have to research your target audience and make sure your ad is seen by them.  With search engine marketing, your target audience finds you.  By specifying what search terms you want to show up for, your ad is only seen by people who are already looking for your product or service.  Your ad will not be wasted on a user who is looking for something completely different than what you’re offering.

COMPLETE CONTROL

Managing SEM ad campaigns is a fairly simple process nowadays.  Google and Bing both have some very useful tools that help you manage your campaign quickly and easily.  You can control every aspect of your campaign such as what time of day you want your ad to be seen or which geographic locations you want to see it.  Budgetary control is also straight forward as you can specify how much money you are willing to spend.

YOU ONLY PAY FOR PEOPLE WHO COME TO YOUR SITE

One of the best parts of PPC advertising is that you literally only pay for your ad when it is clicked.  Your ad can be seen 1,000 times but if it’s only clicked on 50 times, you only pay for those 50 clicks.  It is far more cost effective than traditional advertising methods.

Search engine marketing and pay-per-click advertising is a booming business and for good reason.  It is a quick and easy way to advertise your business, products, services, etc.  Not only is it time effective, but it is far more cost effective than traditional advertising and when set up properly, it’s been proven to yield a high return on investment.  If you haven’t taken advantage of it yet, you need to be.  If you’re still a little hesitant, contact us here at Appnet and we’ll set up a consultation to assist you with the proper search engine marketing solution.