SEO is dead. Long live PPC

Okay so that’s a bit of a dramatisation, SEO (search engine optimisation) isn’t dead, but with Google always being one step ahead they are making SEO increasingly difficult and levelling the playing field.

There are always tips and tricks that web designers and SEO agencies can do to help, but the fact remains that 'content is king'; if you want your website to rank well in Google, it really needs to be populated with unique and relevant content.

This is possible with some keywords and within some industries; but for businesses with a lot of different keywords combinations, perhaps with several geographical areas it can be impractical to create the required content. Doing this can not only take a lot of time, and therefore cost a lot of money, but can also ruin the user experience on a website which will negatively impact on sales.

So this is where PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising comes in. This is where you pay Google (AdWords), Facebook, Yahoo or Bing to have a prominent advert.

The advantage with PPC is that is fully customisable and there are lots of different options that can be tailored for your business.

• You can to ‘jump the SEO queue’ and move to the top of Google, with Google AdWords. Literally pay to move to the top of the page. It doesn’t matter how competitive the market is, it’s all down to who has the deepest pockets.
• You can advertise on 3^rd party websites by choosing websites that contain your target audience; why wait for them to search for you?
• Have you ever visited a website one day then suddenly found that their adverts are everywhere on the web? Well that’s called remarketing and it’s very cheap and effective.
• With Facebook Ads you can be very specific in who you target. Wouldn’t it be handy if a contemporary wedding dress shop could target ladies, aged between 18 and 35 who are no more than 25 miles away, and have recently got engaged? Well with PPC advertising you can.
• For online shop owners, wouldn’t it be good if you could forget about impressions, CTRs and cost per clicks? Well you can, set up goal tracking and you can literally see how much each sale has cost you. This is a must for anyone with an eCommerce website.

Of course these are just a few of the platforms and uses. PPC is a whole industry in itself and can be very effective.

The main issue with PPC is that, if poorly managed, can cost you a lot of money!

This is because a lot of the campaigns are billed by how many people click your advert, not how many people buy from you. It’s imperative that you use the correct platforms, and target the correct audience. Furthermore it’s important that the user sees an advert that is accurate, and when they click it they are directed to the relevant product or service. Then it’s just as important that the website is set up to appeal to the user and encourage them to pick up the phone or enter their credit card details.

Consider a local clothes shop. Traditionally the owner would like as many people through the door as possible, because more people equals more sales, and more profit. However, if the shop owner was taxed £1 for everyone who walked through her door it is quite likely that she’d employ someone to ask people what they want before entering the shop, and only direct people inside if they are likely to purchase something. This is an analogy for SEO with a ‘the more the merrier’ approach, compared to PPC which is highly targeted and refined.

Yes businesses can manage their own PPC but, from our experience they are not targeting or directing their clients correctly and their campaigns have been far from efficient. One of our clients was happy to be getting a high number of clicks to his shop, but we calculated that one particular campaign was costing him around £560 for each sale of an item that cost just £250; it doesn’t need to be explained why this is bad business.

For any companies with a moderate PPC budget we would happily take a look over their campaigns and advise if we could make a difference. For us to be effective and offer to pursue a project, we’d want to be confident that, after we have been paid, our clients are still profiting from their campaigns.

If you’d like us to look at your PPC (pay per click) campaigns, or review your organic SEO (search engine optimisation) strategy, then please get in touch.

We are Webbed Feet ^UK, we are a SEO and PPC agency in Salisbury, Wiltshire.