Digital Marketing is all about choices, specifically which ones to make in order to get the best results. Effective marketing activity involves finding the most appropriate channels to use. With pay per click advertising (PPC) there’s a tendency to think of this as somehow in opposition to organic SEO. In fact, it should be treated as another arm of your strategic marketing activity, enhancing your online presence.
“If you’re not currently using pay per click then you could be missing out,” explains Jonathan Guy, of digital marketing specialists, Aqueous SEO. “I know companies who get up to 80% of their business through Google AdWords and Google Shopping.”
Which Approach Should You Take?
The two basic options for getting more traffic to your website are pay per click advertising or search engine optimisation (SEO).
“Pay per click enables you to display ads for your site in the section of the search engine results reserved for sponsored entries”, explains Jonathan. “If the person searching clicks on your ad, they are taken to your website.”
“Alternatively, you can rely on the organic search results arising from the optimisation of your site using best practices,” Jonathan continues. “This approach is, typically, slower than PPC, but can still yield good results, depending on how well you optimise your site, and the quality of your content.”
Which approach is better will depend on the specific requirements your business has, and on how much you’re willing to spend.
“Pay per click can provide immediate visibility on searches and it can actually increase your organic click-through rates”
Whether or not to choose PPC may come down to your advertising budget, but also what advertising expenditure is like within your sector or industry. If your competitors are investing in pay per click this may drive the cost per click up, depending on your choice of keyword phrase.
You also need to consider how competitive the search engine results pages (SERPs) are in your niche area of business. For certain industries, organic searches are dominated by certain key players, who are near impossible to displace organically. In this situation, PPC is your best option for increasing your website traffic.
How Effective is Pay Per Click?
“Pay per click is a marketing tool,” Jonathan concludes. “As such, its effectiveness depends on how you use it. Get it wrong and it can prove costly, but with the right expertise guiding you, it can be a truly effective means for achieving your marketing objectives while maximising your return on ad spend.”
To discover how to generate more sales and maximise your returns from PPC, please call Aqueous SEO on 0800 285 1424 or visit aqueous-seo.co.uk.
