When starting or expanding a business, marketing is key.
Fast qualified traffic to your site is essential for survival.
That's when you may need Pay-per-Click Advertising on Bing or Google to get web traffic NOW.
You or an expert must manage campaigns, which is to set up, plan, test, choose keywords, write ads, organize, improve, and tweak.
Why do PPC? Generally, SEO by PPC-Pay per Click is usually a better buy, much more certain and immediate than Organic Ranking efforts, which can take years and cost huge time and effort. Most Social Marketing doesn't work well.
By FAR, most buying or joining is done via SEARCH ENGINES. (The next competitor is personal email referrals). About 80% of buying is via Search Engines, mostly Google. Social media is a paltry 3-5%. Organic ranking (free) only works for companies on the first page (83% of searchers no longer look past the first page, almost none go to the 3rd page and beyond. To sell, you MUST be on page 1 or 2 for several terms. (SEO companies will promise you first page, but it's on obscure terms and very local).
A HUGE PROBLEM for those who failed to be popular leaders in search terms is: You almost CAN'T DISLODGE the Google First Page (even 2nd page) Leaders. Google's organic ranking algorithm favors large, popular, high-traffic,"firstest with mostest" companies. If you missed that one train leaving, and you're not a popular site with GREAT & Perfectly designed Content, you are out of luck.
You can spend a fortune and years in effort and help to try to work up to Google's first page on 100 search terms, but odds are 10 to 1 you will EVER get ranked high if you are small, have a mediocre site, or are late to the party.
The problem is UNCERTAINTY. There's no guarantee, and no clear rules. Google makes a point to say it does not tell how its Algorithm works exactly. It suggests things that help, but the target is ALWAYS CHANGING, Moving. We believe it's because... Google wants you to BUY advertising. They're NOT stupid. They know 97% can't do it and won't qualify. Also they know organic has to be written well for both humans and search engine spiders.
We've watched people go off and insist on working on and hiring specialists in organic SEO, only to make little progress against big, popular, lucky (to some extent) and super-well-designed sites and content with HUNDREDS of QUALITY inbound links you can't buy. Most business managers WILL NOT take the time to study what works, but will hire a fast-talking SEO charlatan (this is the wild frontier-remember the Donner Party who listened to an expert (froze to death)).
WE can help you do organic; You SHOULD do some. We even do some organic ourselves (this site), but it is extremely DIFFICULT. We've learned a great deal since this site was begun in 2008. (We would have made it about 10 sites, each highly-focused, for example, and taken a different tack).
After you have studied how to design a website and promote a website, and how to choose paid versus organic promotion, you still need to learn about Search Engine Pay per click advertising, regardless which method (organic or paid) you choose to emphasize. This is because you need to test appeals and headlines for content improvement, study competitors and learn to do special promotions.
You CAN NOT do proper organic free promotion without Google's Webmaster tools and Keyword Tools. To access Keyword tools, you must have an Adwords account.
Learn Google's tools. Do some Adwords. (or get us to do it for you) It helps to examine competition, learn about prospect segments, and tweak headlines and the company web strategy, which WILL help the Business Stategy.
Or you will have chosen to try out PPC as a fast way to get site traffic. You can get IMMEDIATE traffic, within a day or so. You'll want to learn all about Adwords or Bing campaigns. This page explains more of how, in conjunction with other pages about promotion, Adwords and site management.
We'll help you learn fast how to make it work economically IF it is suitable for your business.
What is Pay Per Click Advertising?
How to Do PPC Management --- or Choose an Adwords PPC Agent:
Pay-Per-Click PPC Advertising Management - PPC Campaign Management
You CAN do it yourself, if you get good help and training to set up your Online Advertising. (If someone on your staff is intelligent and can spend at least an hour per week on it). We help small businesses get started.
Small Businesses usually need help with their online advertising, outsourcing all or part of the set-up, testing and management of online advertising to an "online media agent", who may continue to manage the account, or train and consult with internal staff.
We are an online media agent and PPC management company, as well as experts in web design and Maintenance..
We provide FLEXIBLE online advertising Solutions, from training to turnkey.
Google Adwords Management is to train in-house or hire a PPC SEO specialist agent (like us) to place Pay per Click ads on Bing or Google Adwords to advertise your site. They find keyword search phrases that hopefully are not the most expensive, bid for Google ranking position on your behalf... and other tasks below.
HOW MUCH DOES PPC COST?: There are two costs: Management and Clicks.
Typical costs are about $0.80 to $5 per click. More commonly, for average type businesses, depending on competition, bids run about $1.30 to $3.50 per click (Local can often be less).
PPC Management Fees vary widely from $200 to $10,000/mo or more for big companies. More on this below, plus our rates.
The search phrases are tested by placing text ads (typically) to be shown as sponsored ads on Google in areas-locations (search phrases and geographically) in which you wish to advertise. The outside click manager or your marketing department will help compose brief ads and headlines that appeal to your target audience. A good PPC Manager tries to also word the ad to tease but also screen out "lookers". Ability to write great headlines and Ad copy is rare, and the "pulling power" of ads can vary by 5 times or more with just small changes.
The key to success is TESTING. Lots of testing of ads and search phrases helps to refine the business and product market positioning and the strategy and site content. That is what is most powerful about Adwords and Bing. Testing can save big money, avoid wrong websites with weak appeals, and refine the all-important strategy. That is extremely valuable, regardless whether you hire PPC help to do it all or just help you get started testing using internal staff.
To buy site immediate traffic now, Google Adwords is usually a good choice.
But like ALL matters of internet marketing and websites, BUYER BEWARE. Get expert help or you WILL likely waste a bunch of money or overspend. Budget-setting is CRUCIAL !
If you've read our SEO Scams and Dangers article, you have an idea of some of the pitfalls waiting for those who fall for typical SEO "help".
PPC management is considered part of "SEO"- Search Engine Optimization, to some people.
Most people in business (even in SEO) don't distinguish between organic and paid promotion, which is a mistake.
Managing PPC Costs:
PPC is not cheap, but it's effective and quick. Nor is it very expensive for a capable company with good products with over half a million in sales per year. Nor is PPC management cheap. Real businesses who know what they are doing use PPC management.
Costs: A typical small mostly-Online business for $1 million in sales spends ABOUT 3% of sales on PPC Ads directly plus about 1 1/2% For the PPC management. That's in line with conventional brick and mortar business. That's about $45-50,000 per year. That's around $4000 per month total with PPC management.
This can vary to half or twice that, depending on how competitive the market is, nature of the business (fair margin hard-selling consumer items) and whether you are competing Nationally or locally.
Local search placement is much less expensive than competing nationally or internationally
We can help you get started cheaper than that, and than most.
Local or unique-product or strong-brand businesses can spend a lot less, about 50-60% of the typical. Smaller businesses competing in crowded or national markets can spend a much higher percentage of sales and still barely get by or fail.
A bad business can't be fixed by just good advertising.
We can help a small company seeking $200,000 to a few million annual sales to get started for even less than the above typical rates. A basic first "test" campaign with
- 2 to 4 Ad Groups and
- 100 to 200 search phrases ... can be
- Set up for about $250 to $400 One-Time Setup Fee and
- Run for about $200-$250/mo in PPC management fee
- plus $400-$700 in click costs.
That is a level that is both likely to be useful to learn/improve AND produce some sales. On the management of click advertising, with us you get what you pay for. Nearer the higher end, you get more tweaking.
Much of the monthly fee for Pay Per Click management is for- testing, changing, improving, tweaking the campaigns,
- helping plan campaigns,
- suggesting content improvements and
- writing Headlines and ads that pull (finding headlines and appeals that work).
You need to know all about site promotion and proper site design to fully understand why the site should be designed for the type of promotion chosen.
PPC Management does the job of:
- setting up the account .
- evaluating the website, its content and product features.
- looking at the marketing strategy (targeting, audience, locations).
- researching Keywords - search terms in relation to the content .
- creating ads to test headlines and appeals, initial.
- working with the business sales department to plan campaigns and special promotions.
- coordinating with the web developer and marketing manager as to direction and wording of offers and development of landing pages or sections focused on product features matching target customer needs and motivations.
- helping refine the budget for PPC campaigns
- working with the web design firm and marketing dept. to schedule periodic improvements to the web site based on appeal and headline testing.
- discussing with marketing each quarter to 6 months as to projected changes in web marketing strategy.
- Helping marketing plan for proper budgeting for PPC
How to Get started and the Process of Setting up and Hiring a PPC Agent:
Gradually training and turning over to internal staff some of the on-going PPC management (after about 12 to 18 months, over about 18 months) is one possibly good option ( a hybrid approach).Ad headline and copy writing skills of the PPC manager-SEO specialist should work hand-in hand with the marketing department of the business, and coordinate with staff assigned as web development liaison.
Like everything with internet marketing, there is a huge range of talent, knowledge and ability in PPC management. A bad one will just waste about half of your money, or more. They could even wrongly influence the direction of your company.
The PPC specialist, like any SEO expert, MUST work closely with the professional web design-development firm, liaison staff and the marketing department---to ensure site integrity and cycles of improvements planned around campaigns. This allows the web designer to be the central contact and control point for web site changes, to ensure integrity, security, backups and copyright control.
Shop around. Look for time in business of the parent company and strong association with a web design business like BG Design.
The best way to get started is to "try it out" on a small scale, test out the PPC expert and give them time and good marketing strategy information to come up with good Headlines, keywords and appeals to be synergistic with the entire web marketing effort, as REQUIRED. Read most of www.Web-Success.net to understand why.
What you do depends on budget and your staffing
Whether you go full blown PPC management agent or mostly Do-it-yourself depends mostly on your budget and your skills---whether you can afford a PPC manager or simply get one or your Web Design company to help you set up and get started. PPC and Adwords or Bing is a little hard to do and requires some intelligence, ability, knowledge of advertising copy writing and of how Adwords works. An average busy person with no training can take a long time to learn how to set it up and test PPC. One should at least hire an expert to help set it up and help run the first campaign. Don't expect much from your first couple of campaigns if Do-it-Yourself.
Even if you hire a PPC manager, someone knowledgeable in the company has to help guide the PPC expert and explain your business and prospective target segments of prospects, their behaviors, motivations, and needs as met by product features you offer. That is you still have to commit a good 12 hours per month to helping the PPC manager get the job done.
Go over your goals, your business strategy and your web strategies with your web designer and your PPC manager together. You must involve and listen to your experienced web designer developer in regard these matters, and be sure they can easily work with the chosen PPC manager. If not, consider another PPC manager, because frankly your web designer is probably more important to your site's future and already probably can help you set up your own PPC Adwords set up.
Keep in mind there are wide ranges in prices for PPC management, some quite expensive. The range for a small company ($200,000 to $5 million sales) is around $600 to $2500 per month solely for PPC service and Ad copy writing. The average will be typically around $900 to $1200 per month.
That also depends on what you get, whether one ad or 6 or 8, and how many Ad Groups. You can easily use and get several times the number of ads and different focus in different ad groups. Just know what you are getting. We at Buyers' Group and BG Design tend to the mid range of about 3 to 4 ad groups to get started, and charge about 2/3 what the average better-quality PPC management firm charges, but we are better coordinated with our web design arm.
We suggest you use us. We can help you get started for about $250 to $500 in PPC management fees over a coupled of months, and about $400-$1000 in click costs. With that, you can get a feel for how effective and what the cost might be. Training you to take that over would be additional, at $35 per hour.
Be sure before you get far into either design or promotion that you really study proper web site design tips and factors for web business success.
You can use PPC about any way and to the extent you want. The learning will be worth a lot to the company, and teach your company some about good ads and your competition.
Good Luck
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