original on historyinanhour.com
We have been doing PPC for the past seven years, and after hundreds of account audits we have encountered all kinds of mistakes. By looking at five of the most common, we hope to educate businesses on some easy ways to avoid PPC tragedies.
Everyone wants the best PPC. Mistakes don’t help.
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April was an interesting month this year. It was Vantage’s first month in the new office, and it did not disappoint. We were lucky enough to experience both internet outage and a snow-day equivalent power outage. But neither of those issues has gotten us down. Our new office has so much more space! We’re also exploring the nearby area for lunch spots. Any advice on delicious haunts near 535 Thurlow would be highly appreciated.
The weather was also quite the roller coaster. One day would be warm and lovely and humming with spring, the next would be dreary, grey, and raining with Vancouver spring. We hope May brings flowers. And lots of continued success.
You’ve probably dabbled in PPC before, and it probably wasn’t pretty. Results might have been catastrophic. Communication was probably non-existent. And the usage of your money was most likely as transparent as the last legal document you’ve read.
Pay-per-click marketing is not as simple as a lot of fly-by-night providers promise, you’ve come to realize that, and that’s the first step to recovery.
You know that PPC is important, that it might be your greatest source of business, but you also know you need dedicated specialists. You need them to spare you the headache of learning the ins and outs of, what you should consider, a profession. Now you’re ready to research PPC agencies, and, hopefully, find the one that fits your needs.
Choosing a PPC agency is serious. But how do you know which PPC agency is right for you? Let’s take a look at the main points you should consider:
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Have you ever wondered what those funny looking sponsored links are when you search on Google? Well those are Google Adwords paid text ads. Google Adwords is an Internet marketing program that allows you to place advertisements on either search result pages or websites.
These ads are relevant to what the people are searching for. So yes these ads actually help people find what they are looking for. Most people don’t even realize that they are clicking on a sponsored link. This is good for you because they think you are showing up in the #1 spot in Google organically which gives you credibility.
So how does Google Adwords work?
questions > >>> search for answers >>>> click on your ads >>>> find answers on your site
At the most basic level Google Adwords works by having the advertiser bid on keyword phrases that potential customers are searching for. When a potential customer searches for the term you are bidding on you ad will show up in the sponsored link section next to the organic rankings. Your ranking in the sponsored links is based on your bid and on how relevant your ad is to the searcher (AKA quality score).
The best part about Adwords is that you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. If people don’t like your ad and don’t click you don’t pay. Another benefit of pay per click advertising is that you can track the number of people that click, but most importantly take action on your site. This can be used to determine if Adwords PPC is right for you.
Why advertise on Google Adwords? Read more
Ok so in this blog post I will try to make the case for why you should use a Pay Per Click consultant to manage your account vs going with an one stop shop internet marketing provider. Just to clarify a one-stop shop internet provider will do your website, SEO, PPC, social media and maybe even hosting.
One Stop-Shop
Pros:
Hey you are getting all your internet needs met through one company which makes things a lot more convenient for you. In theory your whole marketing effort should be an integrated marketing machine that should work smoothly together to meet your needs. Finally most people tend to trust bigger internet companies because they have an established reputation and brand name.
Cons:
The one big con (no bun intended) is that most one stop shop internet providers charge you an astronomical amount of money to give you the privilege of even sitting down to get a quote with them in the first place. Secondly they usually charge an extremely high monthly fee or even worse a % of your pay per click spend to manage your accounts. This can be a problem because you can get tied into long contracts that are difficult to get out of.
The biggest thing I have seen is that they try to get you to fork out $10,000 to $15,000 for a new website when in most cases your existing site just needs face lift. That money can go along way towards PPC and SEO initiatives.
PPC consulting is serious business
So if you are not sure which pay per click networks to advertise on or even start with, this post should help.
Google Adwords Search
By far the biggest and in many respects best PPC Network is Google Adwords. Your ads can run beside relevant search result or on the Display network where your ads will show on other people’s websites. The disadvantage with Adwords is that it has the highest amount of competition right so you will end up paying a higher cost per click than on other networks.
Vancouver Pay Per Click recommends starting with Adwords for search first. The amount of traffic is high and very targeted which helps with testing keywords and ad copy. Within 4 of 6 weeks of advertising on Adwords search you will have enough historical data to build out your account. I have seen accounts go from 1 campaign with a few hundred keywords to 20 campaigns with tens of thousands of keywords in as little as a month. The first month requires a lot of work and expertise to prevent you from going in the wrong direction.
Adcenter & YSM
