What is Paid Search Advertising(PPC)?
How does PPC differ from Organic/Natural SEO?
Should I start with PPC or SEO?
Why should I outsource my PPC management to Softline?
How long does it take to launch a PPC campaign?
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Paid search, often known as Pay Per Click (PPC), is a form of advertising offered by the various Internet search engines. Advertisements are attached to particular keywords (or key phrases), and shown only when someone searches on that keyword. The major paid search providers are Google, Yahoo and bing Search.
Pay Per Click is purchased on a cost per click basis. The advertiser only pays when someone actually clicks on the advertisement. Most paid search advertising is handled on a Pay Per Click basis.
The primary differences are:
• Paid search can be launched quickly. Natural SEO generally takes months to show a return.
• Paid search focuses on a large number of keywords. Natural SEO needs to be focused on a few high-return keywords.
• Paid search is highly measurable. Tracking results on natural SEO is more difficult (although not impossible).
Poorly managed, paid search can be very expensive. Properly managed, it can be a goldmine. Most critical is that the results are carefully tracked, and that the data received from tracking is used to optimize the advertising. Typically you need at least 30 to 45 days of data to begin PPC optimization.
We actually recommend a two pronged approach. While PPC can deliver quick, targeted traffic, its SEO that will lower your overall online marketing costs in the long run.
We generally start our clients of with a targeted PPC campaign while developing and implementing their SEO strategy. This gives our clients the ability to generate traffic and sales instantly while positioning them to rank organically for similar keywords in their PPC campaigns and reducing the over per click costs and budgets.
In many cases, managing paid search internally is the best way to go, and we’ve told many prospective clients this. You should consider outsourcing the management of paid search when one or more of the following are true:
• You expect the monthly media cost to be in the thousands of dollars or higher.
• Your product or service is available in a sufficiently large geographic area.
• You have hundreds or thousands of potential keywords.
• You have tried paid search and couldn’t make it profitable.
Once we have all the necessary documentation in place we can begin development and strategic keyword analysis and should have a campaign in place within 2-3 weeks. Keep in mind our process is completely transparent and you will have access to all reporting and keyword views.
Click fraud is a legitimate problem with paid search advertising. The major paid search engines have technologies in place to prevent click fraud, but they do not always work. We closely monitor our paid search accounts for suspicious behavior. This often results in a credit being made to the account by the search engine.
The first step is to determine what is being measured in the campaign. In most cases, a site is either attempting to sell directly, or to generate leads for an offline sales team to work. We refer to these actions as online goals
Once the goals have been defined, there are a number of technologies and strategies we deploy to ensure proper tracking of goals and conversions. We have the ability to track in a very detailed manner and provide reporting to ensure transparency in this process.
