Can some body tel me what are the advantages and disadvantages of PPC. Please tell all about PPC. I don't know anything about PPC. Please tell me how we can start PPC campaign,And what are the main things we must taken care all about.
PPC stands for Pay per Click Advertising. You bid on keywords, and then when someone enters that keyword in Google, your ad will show up in the 'sponsored links' section (light pink box on top and right hand side). Each of these people say a certain amount of money. They dont pay for the AD to appear, they only pay when someone click on the ad. A popular keyword can cost between $4-8 per CLICK, so it can get expensive. That's often why you see sponsored links from big companies because they have deep pockets. About 1-2% of people click on the right hand side sponsored links, 4-6% click on sponsored links on the top side and 10-30% click on the organic results! PPC can be quite costly if you don't know what you are doing.
Biggest advantage of PPC is being able to advertise virtually instantly. Other advantage is having REAL data to use for decision-making. You know exactly how many times ads were shown, how many clicked, how many buy (using conversion tracking for physical or downloadable products). This hard data can be worth a fortune. You have full control (you can change ads and test at any time) and that's a really big advantage. You can also target many more keywords in PPC than you can with SEO thus increasing your reach. Finally, all this real-world information can help with SEO. The disadvantage that most see and why most don't use PPC is the cost. Some just won't spend a penny to advertise. To me, that's not really a disadvantage but more an opportunity. If PPC brings me more visitors, that's more sales and thus a higher profit. Another disadvantage is learning and applying the system (but it's not really that bad, plenty of resources out there, free and otherwise, to help). Don't be scared off by comments such as Nab's about cost of clicks. CPCs of $4 and more are NOT the norm in most industries. Some maybe, like insurance, but if you make a sale that's worth thousands, PPC can well be worth the expense. Click rates can also vary by industry and you cannot make blanket statements such as "only 1% click on ads on the right side". There are ways of making them click. Even if you get 1%, that's visitors you wouldn't get if you did not use PPC. Overall, I say PPC should be part of any search engine marketing strategy.
I agree with Lucid Web Marketing for the most part. However not with this line: It is important to remember that PPC campaigns will provide results, but for competitive industries, it might not be the short term fix that a business is looking for. We just had a client approach us that sells foot products on his website. So, it was a total Ecommerce site situation. The broader keywords were providing him with a lot of visitors but for a very high price ($9 a click). Unfortunately, that wasn't going to work for him because not every visitor converted. Furthermore, since he was in a competitive industry with a thin profit margin, he needed people to buy more than one item to even pay for the cost of one click. Given that situation, PPC may only be effective by targeting specific (low price) keywords or raising the prices of his products. PPC can be most effective with a big budget and high profit margin item or service. The important thing as Lucid Web Market alluded to is to track that information. Know what your cost/conversion is, and what value of one conversion is. If cost/conversion is too close to the conversion value, you need to reconsider the effectiveness of your campaign and whether there are other strategies you can put your money into. As a PPC optimizing provider, it is easy for me to say that everyone should use PPC (because it makes me money when they do), but sometimes it just isn't true. That is why it is really important to examine the numbers before you commit to a large amount of money that you can't waste.
Well, let me qualify. Given an established conversion rate and targeting proper keywords (not broad as your client is doing), if you get more quality traffic using PPC, you will make more sales than if you didn't use it at all. Note too that I wouldn't use PPC for a $2 item, not unless people normally buy a dozen at a time. And items with thinner margins are harder to make a profit (true if you use PPC or not), although you could also sell other items (sell a dress, promote the shoes that go with it) and there's the lifetime value of a customer to consider, not just the initial purchase. Some things just don't sell on the Internet. I don't think buying milk online will ever take off for example. You don't need a big budget but having high margins help. Almost all services should do well, I can't think of one service-based campaign I managed that didn't.
Do allot of research before you throw your money at a ppc campaign. research your specific target market and find as much as you can then do allot of tests on keywords otherwise you will lose money on a campaign if you just pay for an ad and then place it. Do your homework throughly
ppc advantage is that if you use them on your blog, then you will earn handsome of money if your blog has good traffic but if no then everything is really bad
A good advantage of using PPC is: "Usually" you can pay a small amount of money to receive a lot of money when someone buys from your business offer/landing page. "Disadvantages", which I have read that apply to some people/businesses (not to every one): You need to study or get some help to launch a successful campaign. Some times, you'll need a good quality landing page You always need a good quality offer/product. I will always consider this an "Advantage". Let me know or drop me a PM if you want to join my Pay per Click Network ! All the best,