PPC or Pay Per Click is a complicated process by which one pays for clicks on certain advertisements posted in certain areas on certain sites. For Google that’s the top of every search. Whenever that ad is clicked on, the company is charged. If you stop the flow of money, the ads stop. It’s very similar to renting a home. You live in the home as long as you pay for it. But if you stop paying, you have to move, and all the money you’ve paid in means nothing.

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the process of is the process of affecting a websites’ visibility and effectiveness by using methods that aren’t directly paid for. This is more of a marathon than a sprint and will not yield immediate results. But stick with it and you find that your rankings improve, your website is visited more, and your business is receiving more phone calls. This is more like owning a home. The money you put into the home is building equity and if you ever decided to sell the home, you would recoup at least some of those funds.

In the game of online marketing, these two should not act independently of each other but rather in conjunction with each other. But like anything, you have to be education on how each method works to know if you are heading in the right direction and not wasting money and resources.

The key with PPC ads is to get specific. Choose a specific location. Choose specific services. Write a specific headline and description. Get as specific as you can. That way you are targeting the exact clientele you want. Then revise, revise, revise. Change one thing and see the result, then change something else and see that result, then do it again and again until you get to a combination that delivers to the extent you want.

The next thing you have to figure out is how much to spend. Every person you ask is going to tell you something different. When you are in the PPC platform, there should be an analytic tool that will tell you how many impressions and clicks you will get for a certain amount of money. If you live in a bigger area, expect your clicks to cost more than a smaller area. Why? Because they can. Yep. That answer stinks but unfortunately it’s true.

Finally you need to figure out keywords for your ad groups. There is more to consider than how many people search a particular keyword. Each keyword is going to have a different cost associated with it and if the cost is too high you budget is going to be used quickly and you will find yourself not being successful with PPC. The key at this point is to make sure you will have a sufficient return on investment (ROI). Any effort you take should not only pay for itself but make you money on top of it. Now you might have a month or two where you only break even, but as you adjust and adjust and adjust you should see things consistently improving.

For more insights or help with your PPC, call us today!