Search Engine Marketing: Pros and Cons of Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising

It is the aim of every internet marketer to get their
website onto the first page of a search engine, but this takes a lot of
patience and effort before it can be achieved. That is one of the reasons why pay
per click advertising is so popular. It allows you some control over when and
how often your website gets to the very top of the first page of a search
engine (usually in a highlighted section referred to as ‘Sponsored Links’ or
something similar). This involves bidding on keywords, meaning the highest
bidders get their link shown when those particular keywords are searched, and
then they pay the bid amount every time someone clicks that link.

This sounds like the perfect advertising, no fixed fees,
only pay for keywords, get to the top of Google. But although it has its many
advantages, it has equal disadvantages, and so should be entered into only
after familiarising yourself entirely with the pros and cons.
The Pros

PPC works at a far faster rate than SEO or any other form of advertising. You
could be receiving clicks within a few hours of setting up the agreement with
the PCC company, depending on how popular your chosen keywords are.

The traffic increase is steep, as its only search engines that display PPC
links. PPC companies have got deals going with many other websites and blogs
who will display the links on their own web pages in order to cash in.

Unlike with search engine optimization (SEO) which is not
always a guaranteed process, PPC is paid for so you know what you are getting
for your money. You can also set yourself a budget, so you won’t accidently
spend more than you meant to.
The Cons

Although you can set yourself a budget, that doesn’t mean you won’t need to
spend quite a bit to actually achieve what you want to achieve. To compete with
all the other bidders you may have to bid relatively high per click, and then
those clicks soon add up.

You may have heard of a thing called click fraud. This is a
big concern in the text ads and PPC world, and involves some publishers
(websites who are paid by PPC companies to publish the links) clicking their
own ads to get more money. PPC companies are cracking down on this, and
instantly ban anyone found to be doing so, but it is still a worry to all
involved. There can also be accidental clicks by visitors to a publisher’s
website mistaking the link for something else on the actual website. Although
you can guarantee people will click, you cannot guarantee that these clicks
will turn into leads and sales.
Due to the heavy competition and therefore escalating
bidding wars over popular keywords, it is best to look for a less popular
variant of the most popular keywords you were looking at using. When using text
advertising, it is wise to find keywords and phrases that are not popular. Trying
to outbid huge corporations with equally large budgets will only cost you more
money and won’t be half as effective.
Choosing Keywords and
Bidding

Here’s example of choosing related keywords and phrases by
popularity:
The company: A digital marketing company offering SEO, PPC
and other online marketing services.
Low competition keywords and phrases associated with this
company would include:
      ·        
‘professional online marketing company’
      ·        
‘social media PCC’
      ·        
‘media PCC’
High competition keywords and phrases for the company would
include:
       ·        
‘best pay per click website’ 
       ·        
‘pcc management campaign’
       ·        
‘web internet marketing services’
       ·        
‘cheap seo solutions’
The price you pay per click is dependent on the ad quality,
your maximum bid, and the maximum bids of the competition. If you set a maximum
bid of £1 per click per ad, then you will never pay more than this, and if the
competition only bids a maximum of 50p per click for the same ad position, assuming
your ads have the same quality, you will only need to pay 51p to outbid them.
It is best to use a traffic estimator before setting your
daily and monthly budgets so that you know what you can get a better idea of
what you will be getting for your money. Choosing low popularity keywords and
phrases could cost you anything between £100 to £500 a month, and a maximum bid
of £1 – £10 per click is needed to secure your spot. Higher popularity key
words and phrases could be £500 and upwards per month, with a maximum bid of
£10+. 
Average cost per click (CPC) for low popularity key words is 50p – £5,
and for more popular ones you can expect an average CPC of £6+. It is hard to
determine exactly as every industry is different, and these figures are just a
very rough estimate. For more information specific to your industry and
company, choose a PPC company and ask for a consultation.
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping