Paid Search
Paying is the only way to guarantee placement at the top of search engine results. Often, it’s worth the price.
“Will this [insert service here] get us to the top of Google?” Forget for a moment whether that should be your goal. We get this question more than any other. Our answer is always. “no”. The only way to guarantee placement at the top of search engine results, is to outbid the competition and pay for it.
Have you tried advertising on Google, Bing, or Facebook and been disappointed? Pay-per-click advertising only works when you take the time to properly research keywords, demographics, local geographic boundaries, and then structure campaigns correctly, create incredible ads, develop landing pages that convert, and track return on investment.
The pay-per-click advertising model has more than a passing resemblance to oil exploration in Western North Dakota. Advances in technology (fracking and horizontal drilling), along with higher oil prices made exploration in the Bakken profitable. It’s easy to calculate return on investment when cost per barrel to extract is known. Advances in online marketplaces and reporting allowed Google to create Adwords. Auction style bidding for ad placements allows profitability. Tracking and reporting allows exact ROI to be known. It works best with business models where return on investment is easy to calculate. Or, with new or growing businesses that have a high lifetime value of a customer. It can attract new customers quickly. Wildcatting and PPC marketing both have the potential to drain your wallet, or help you strike it rich. Invest wisely.
Consider the example below (a search for “pay per click advertising”). The sections labeled Pay-Per-Click are paid advertising. The answer box section is a feature Google displays on some search results. The Organic SEO section is your first chance, and only 2 out of 14 placements for your business to appear on the first page (one of those is a wikipedia article you’ll never outrank). The number 1 result usually gets about 1/3 of the clicks on a Google search. Only 1 in 20 (about 5.5%) will click a result on page 2. Local search results for categories can be even more challenging (try searching your business category).
With over 10-years of experience, we understand pay-per-click ads. We know they work. We’ve attracted millions of visitors with well run accounts. We can help you too.
