PPC – No Quick Fix Spree!
PPC and SEO can often be misunderstood by business owners as a quick fix to falling sales or solving a deeper company malaise! Before throwing money at paid search, identifying aims and careful research are crucial.
The key to developing successful online marketing campaigns is based on forensic SEO keyword research, constant monitoring of daily visitor traffic, potential customer site behaviour – and constant testing of PPC ads, web page layout and content.
It is all too often simply assumed that sponsored ads automatically generate high volumes of prequalified customers who readily click and convert onsite. By looking more closely at the targeted market niche, segmentation and previous PPC ad performance history, a more clearer picture should emerge of search word usage. Otherwise, cost of sales – or advertising spend – can simply exceed the product or service cost itself.
Consequently, disillusion sets in and those businesses who have invested heavily in Adwords simply stop when it appears to not deliver the desired results. However, it is often the case that by relooking at why certain marketing strategies are being deployed with solid, back up analytics, a more informed and filtered approach can be adopted.
It’s important to realise that there may not be a substantial, pre-existing audience searching for keywords related to a product or service. This does not exclude using other ways to reach potential customers via search. Keywords can be used related to solving a problem rather than describing a product or service.
Location is all-important to local/regional search and plays a significant role for Google. Positioning is key, thus, “Web Design Cheshire” will likely work better than “Manchester Web Design” as a search term tends to be based on product/service first and location second but, once again, testing can throw up unexpected results!
Never make assumptions. Copious use of keyword research should also include asking an existing customer base for terms they generally enter into the Google search box when looking for particular products or services. Mostly, it is no more than two to three words but increasingly, the longtail – or precise description – is employed if searching for a very particular type of niche item. This approach is often successfully applied when including leading brand name goods, and can highlight supplier brand identity through social media ‘shares’, ‘likes’ and retweets.
Remember – there are no quick fixes or magic bullets, but simply working hard by constantly testing, monitoring and tracking paid search clicks and conversions to identify peak performance, and ultimately, profitable campaigns.