Use Google to increase your website’s ROI

In May 2009 Google reported 239-million searches per day. How can you ensure that some of that traffic reaches your website? The answer lies in search engine marketing (SEM). SEM comprises search engine optimisation (SEO) and pay per click advertising (PPC) and both are ROI driven online marketing tools.

SEO and PPC are complementary online marketing elements and incredibly effective when utilised as part of an integrated online strategy. According to statistics searchers prefer to click on organic (SEO) search results and 92% of respondents said they don’t click further than the first three pages of search results. That said, PPC is an incredibly powerful marketing tool, either on its own or when combined with SEO, for various reasons.

It can take up to six months for an SEO campaign to show results and have an influence on search results. PPC on the other hand is a great short-term solution. PPC advertising can be activated almost immediately and drive traffic to your website within hours. PPC advertising adds great value to an SEO campaign especially in the initial phase of an SEO campaign when the website is still acquiring rankings. In addition, running a PPC campaign in the initial phase of an SEO campaign helps define key-phrases that you might want to target for the SEO campaign.

The foundation of a PPC advertising campaign is keyword research. There are various tools that can help to determine the popularity of a keyword or key-phrase and suggest related keywords. It is often very difficult to rank for broad keywords, therefore it is important to have various key-phrases included in your keyword strategy. If you are a South African based online florist it is virtually impossible to rank for broad keywords like ‘flowers’ but a lot easier to rank for a key-phrase like ‘flower and gift delivery service South Africa.’

PPC advertising is based on a bidding system and is a good choice if you are budget orientated. Since you are paying for traffic to your website, qualified traffic and conversions are important. A conversion is measured when a desired action by a visitor is performed; like signing up for newsletter, downloading a brochure of filling in a contact form. The aim of a PPC campaign is to ensure that the cost per acquisition remains as low as possible.

Landing pages play a very important role in PPC advertising. If your PPC advert focuses on ‘buy a bouquet of red roses’ it is important to ensure that when the searcher clicks on your ad they are taken directly to the page where they can buy a bouquet of red roses. Don’t make your visitor think or search for the action they think you want them to perform. Make sure the call to action like ‘get more info’ or ‘buy now’ is clearly visible.

An analytics package like Google Analytics provides valuable insight about exit pages and key-phrases that directed visitors to your website. Based on insights gathered from your analytics package it is important to constantly tweak the PPC campaign to ensure maximum ROI. A PPC campaign is very detailed and it is important to spend time refining and tweaking the campaign.

Is your website performing on the World Wide Web and generating business leads or are you losing out on potential business to well-ranking competitors? PPC can enhance your presence on search engines, delivering the exact message you want to convey, either on its own or as part of an integrated online marketing strategy.