Often times, business owners are hesitant to embark on the journey that is pay-per-click advertising, usually opting for less expensive methods. Yes, it’s true that paying for clicks can quickly become a large expense, but you always have to consider the return you’re going to get from your investment.
Yes, pay-per-click advertising is an investment.
As is with any business decision, you have to look at the whole situation and determine whether or not pay-per-click campaigns will help you achieve the business goals that you have set, specifically those pertaining to your website.
Well-established websites with a strong and loyal traffic flow may opt out of pay-per-click because the people visiting the site are already engaged and continue coming back. Although we don’t think that you should ever stop searching for customers, it’s somewhat understandable if you take your foot off the gas a little bit (for lack of a better analogy) when business is booming and it’s not a smart move to expand operations right now. So if you’re in that situation, PPC might not be the right choice for you.
But what about websites that are struggling to get a constant flow of traffic?
Organically establishing your website and getting ranked on Google is a lengthy process. If you’re a brand new site with a brand new domain, it can take anywhere from 6 to 12 months before Google starts sending traffic your way--and that’s if you implement the right SEO strategies!
Situations Where Pay-Per-Click Makes the Most Sense
Keep in mind that there are nearly one billion...yes, billion...active websites on the internet so there’s plenty of competition when it comes to ranking on the search engines. So if you’re brand new to Google, it’s going to take a while to get traffic and a PPC campaign could do wonders for your site. Using this form of paid advertising is great for any company that is looking for immediate results and for immediate traffic to their website.
In addition to ramping up traffic, it is more than worthy of having the pay-per-click discussion and determining whether or not you want to implement a campaign (or multiple) if you have an upcoming event or time-sensitive promotion, as this is the quickest and most effective way to drive traffic in a short period of time. Pay-per-click strategies also provide many advantages for companies that are seasonal.
Implementing a PPC campaign will definitely drive traffic to your website, there’s no doubt about it. And by using a very specific strategy and only targeting the audience that is most likely to engage in business with you (a.k.a. your persona) means that most, if not all of that traffic will be high quality. The only downside? As soon as you turn that campaign off, the traffic stops. Also, if you’re in a market where a lot of your competitors are also using PPC ads, it’s going to be very expensive. But if your return on investment is high enough, you can use PPC as often as you like, and that strategy will become a major part of your digital marketing.
