According to a recent survey of Internet marketing professionals, 54% of marketers believe that pay per click ads (Google Adwords and other paid advertising) are effective. And personally, I agree. PPC ads are one of the types of advertisements that consumers go looking for online, if they are considering buying something.
Think about what you do yourself when you a looking to purchase something online. If you’re searching for “ski jackets” you will be just as interested in the paid adverts on Google, as in the free search listings, because you are in the market to spend money.
That’s what makes Google Adwords advertising so powerful, if you do it correctly, because your ads are targeted at people who are looking to buy.
Use Google Adwords to test the conversion rate of your website
One of the most powerful ways to use pay-per-click advertising in the early days after getting your website online, is to test the conversion rate of your website.
How do you know how effective your site is at converting visitors into customers, if you’re not getting any traffic?
If you wait until you build up enough free search engine traffic to test the conversion rate, you will be waiting a long time, in most cases. And you’ll have no income off the site in the meantime.
So, use Google Adwords to drive a minimum of 500 visitors to your site (500 is the minimum you need to get a true picture of how well you site is converting.)
The pay-per-click market is competitive
If you’re serious about PPC marketing (and you should be if you’re serious about selling online), you will need to spend an extensive period of time learning how to write and target ads, tracking your competitors, and doing deep keyword research before jumping in.
You will probably lose money at the start
Most people who venture into paid search advertising will lose money before they start making money. There are several reasons for this:
- It takes time to learn how the systems work.
- You need to learn how to target your ads
- You need to learn how to write strong ad copy
- You need to learn how to bid, what position your ad is best to rank in and how to avoid over-priced keywords
- You are competing against hot-shot marketers who have been doing this a lot longer than you!
- Google rewards its long-term advertisers with cheaper click costs.
The reality is, Google Adwords is competitive and will require learning, practice and careful tracking to generate profits.