Search engine marketing, widely known as pay-per-click (PPC) marketing, is a form of paid search advertising. The goal of this type of marketing is to place your company’s ad on the first page of Google search results. This marketing method is a popular digital tactic because it is designed for direct lead generation, it provides numerous opportunities for testing and optimization, and companies of any size can utilize it and run an effective campaign. As consumers turn to online search engines more and more to both research and purchase products and services, search engine marketing can dramatically improve your company’s bottom line.
Immediate opportunities
Ranking organically on Google and the other search engines is a difficult, time-intensive process. Your competitors are also attempting to rank, so organic success is never guaranteed nor permanent. Search engine marketing can be a great option to place your business on the front page of Google in the short-term while you continue to invest in a quality organic search marketing program. PPC ads can be created and put into action very quickly. With the right strategy and implementation, your business has a chance to rank at the top of the page almost immediately.
Campaign management
Google Ads offers a versatile online dashboard for managing search engine marketing campaigns. It provides us the ability to create your ad copy, set a daily budget, and set goals. Google also allows you to choose your target keyword phrases and to select which page of your website users will be directed to once they click on your ad. These tools and options allow us as marketers to help your company by developing PPC campaigns that are highly targeted toward your ideal customers. The goal is to collect data based on the results of your campaigns to make informed decisions for future strategies.
Search intent
Developing successful PPC ad campaigns that generate results for your business is based on building a strategy around the concept of search intent. Search intent refers to providing the answer or solution that best addresses the issues and problems that your customers are encountering. No matter how well-targeted your PPC ads are, if each component of the ad copy does not specifically speak to the searcher’s intent, it is far less likely that they will click on your ad.
This means that the ad headlines and description should specifically speak to the user’s problem. The ad copy needs to be engaging and compelling. Because of Google’s character-count limitations, each piece of copy must be carefully chosen for optimal performance. In addition to the copywriting, you need to be sure to select the best keyword phrases so that your ad shows up at the right times to the right audiences. It’s important to think about what your customers would type into Google, not necessarily how you would speak about your products and services. We think about what problem your customers have and how we can best let them know that we have their solution with our ad copy.
Optimized landing pages with tracking codes are vital for your PPC ads. You should not be using your homepage as a landing page unless you have one single product or service. If your PPC ad promotes a specific product or service, select that product or service’s specific page on your site as the landing page. Doing this will make the searchers experience much more enjoyable.