Do you have a website for your business? Are you advertising online for that business? I have so many business owners who are just starting to realize the potential of online advertising for their small business but they don't know where to start. As they begin to investigate how to go about this, they become very confused and shy away from any attempt at all. The first question they come to me with is how do I appear as the first company on Google for my services? That is usually when I start explaining to them the process of beginning to do Pay Per Click Marketing to start while working on their organic search results on Google.
What is Organic Search? Google started off in 1998 as a simple search engine like many others at the time. A user types what they are looking for into the Google search box and Google then searches through its gigantic index of known web pages and tries to return the most relevant web pages to whatever the user typed in. Google did such a good job at returning the relevant web pages that they became THE trusted source for internet search. These search results are now called the organic search results. You can't buy the top listing; it is purely the determination of Google as to which sites appear first for any given search term. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is done on your site to get your rankings higher in the organic search results.
What is PPC? PPC stands for Pay-Per-Click advertising. In the Fall of 2000, Google started Adwords. This is a do-it-yourself pay-per-click advertising system. Anyone can bid to have their ad shown next to or above the organic search results. The advantages are obvious: you can get nearly instant traffic and it is a powerful money-making tool. However, every visitor costs you money and the competition is growing, which drives up the cost of your advertising for relevant keywords for your site.
The ultimate marketing strategy is a nice balance of both. You can start immediately by bidding for keywords with PPC and driving instant traffic to your website. While doing this, you gradually build your organic search results. As the site starts to rank highly for certain keywords you can stop bidding, or paying for those keywords on the PPC side. No single advertising method is perfect. It depends on how much and how fast you want sales, the amount you're willing to invest in your site, and your long-term goals for that site.
Lisa Paolo is an internet marketer. She owns several successful online businesses and has spent the last four years marketing those businesses online. She was named Franchisee of the Year in 2008 for one of her businesses and is the top income earner for several websites. Lisa consults with businesses to help them with their long term goals for successful internet marketing campaigns. She can be reached at lpfront@aol.com or 877-507-4848.
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