Introduction
Today internet is touching almost every aspect of our lives. We are more dependent on internet now than ever before. As the reach of digital media is expanding so does its uses. With ever increasing traffic on search engines like Google, it is becoming an 
increasingly important platform for marketing. Pay Per Click (PPC) or Cost Per Click (CPC) is one such strategy applied in Search Engine Marketing (SEM).
What as a product or service provider you need to do? Obvious first step is to create a website. Once your business site is online all you need is people visiting it. In digital marketing terms, you need web traffic.
PPC search engine marketing is a way to attract traffic on a website using keywords which are most relevant to the product or service catered by it. To purchase an ad on a search engine, one has to bid on the keywords most appropriate for the business or service provided by the website. Advertisers with same businesses, services and market share compete in the bidding process.
Bidding And Budget
Bidding for the Keywords takes place in real-time every time the keywords are searched. Ad with the highest bid on the keywords being searched appears in the search results. Bidding is the major factor but certainly not the only factor to determine whether the ad will appear in the search or not. The quality and relevance of the ad is also taken into consideration.
How much to spend on PPC marketing? What would be an ideal budget? These are the most crucial questions while planning your PPC campaign. And I hate to break it down to you that there are no straight forward answers to these questions. You have to start with a budget suiting your pocket and along the way you can adjust it according to the performance of the PPC ad campaign. This is the beauty of PPC marketing. Your budget also rest on how your keywords are performing and how much your competitors are bidding on them. Even more interesting is the option of defining your daily or monthly budget in the settings of the platform you are using to manage PPC campaign. Once the set daily or monthly budget is reached, the campaign stops.
Keywords
Well crafted and extensively researched keywords are the core in determining the quality, relevance and the number of clicks you are going to get on the ad. A free tool is provided by google, the most widely used search engine, for setting up and managing ad campaigns, called Google AdWords. This tool also assists in deciding keywords for a campaign by its Keyword Planner.
Relevant keywords help to achieve:
- Greater conversion rate (Clicks leading to sale)
- Better Return on Investment (ROI)
- Targeted traffic
Thus, by using appropriate keyword you not only generate quality web traffic but also save money by avoiding useless clicks. Targeted traffic leads to better sales.
Your ad appears when the keywords are searched and gets clicked. Once clicked you have to bear the bidding cost, hence the name ”Pay Per Click”.
Now that we have an overview of PPC marketing and how it works, let me justify the title of the blog. Why I think PPC is an effective search engine marketing strategy.
Why PPC Marketing?
Well! although an initial cost is incurred while placing the ad (which could be a bit higher comparatively), ROI more than compensates for it. If your keywords are well researched and are relevant there is no doubt that you will gain targeted traffic on your website. Other benefits PPC marketing campaign brings in include:
- The ad starts getting clicks pretty much instantaneously, within a few hours from the onset of the ad campaign.
- It is also possible to follow your ad campaign in real-time.
- Many tools are available to design, manage, modify and track your campaign when ever you want.
- Analytical tools are also available to help advertisers assess the performance of their PPC campaigns.
- If the campaign is not delivering ROI as expected, the campaigns can be modified, paused or stopped. In short you have the total control of your ad campaign. There is no scope of overspending or wastage of funds.
- It’s even possible to restart the campaign whenever you want or adjust the budget according to the performance of the campaign or the business.
- The PPC ad campaign has the potential to evolve with time. You can analyse the search pattern of your targeted audience, keywords they are searching and you can modify your campaign accordingly. You can identify keywords that are yielding better results. Whereas under performing keywords can be changed or removed.
- The ad campaign can be directed towards a particular country, region or even a locality.
- PPC enable you to be present when ever a potential customer searches for the keywords you have bidded on, i.e at the right place at the right time.
The post PPC Or CPC: An Effective Search Engine Marketing Strategy appeared first on Digital Vidya.