For many small businesses, paid search advertising is the way to go rather than search engine optimization because of the speed of implementation, and the control you have over your content.

As you would expect from its name, paid search advertising is not free (but then again, search engine optimization isn’t really free either, when you consider the time it takes). Paid search advertising has many advantages that you really should consider. In certain ways, pay per click advetising (PPC) is everything that marketing through search engine optimization is not. In the following seven points, we'll take a look at these differences.

Qualified Traffic

As we have noted elsewhere on this site, studies indicate that searchers are most likely to click on organic search results (about 60% of the time). But that still leaves 40% clicking on paid search listings--you know, the ones over to the right hand side of the page… AND 40% is still a significant chunk of of your target market. What’s more, these folks are probably a lot more prepared to buy.  After all ,searchers know your ad is a paid ad... and they have still clicked it anyway. That counts as qualified in my book!

Speed

Paid search can get your small business up and running fast, fast, fast! You should be able to see measurable results within a few days. You can also make changes to your paid search programs on the fly and see the results of your changes almost immediately. That’s a tempting treat for any marketer!

By comparison, search engine optimization requires substantial off-page optimization (primarily link building), plus plenty of on-page optimization through tweaking or re-writing of your webpage copy, and carefully working with your code. All of which require a significant investment of time and attention to detail. Plus, it can take months for you to begin seeing results and additional months to see the effects of changes you make along the way.

So, if your business runs seasonal promotions, events or just want faster, more measureable results, then PPC advertising is where you want to be.

Getting started with pay per click is quick. Setting up a well run, profitable PPC campaign takes time and effort.  if you have been wanting to get into paid search that have not been able to set aside the time to make it happen you call GDM Interactive at (888)-GDM-4977 or send us an e-mail. We can get you set up , help you identify and meet your goals , and manage your program for maximum efficiency and effectiveness.

Low Upfront Cost

Paid search has probably the most inexpensive startup costs of any marketing technique we have ever seen which is a real boon for small businesses. If you do it yourself, setting up your initial account(s) won’t cost more than $5-10.Paid search may allow you to start small but you don't have to stay small. PPC has tremendous potential to ramp up and become a significant contributor to your marketing mix. However, PPC also has the potential to blow through a lot of cash quickly if you are not disciplined and experienced in this kind of marketing.

You may want to work with an experienced search marketing professional to avoid costly mistakes. But, if you are going it alone, then pay attention to the budget options and stick to it... don't get impatient. Most paid search interfaces have excellent options for setting daily budgets and other cool tools. Our advice is to start very small, then increase your budget slowly as you see results coming in and measure their effectiveness. Don't get overly excited about the volume of traffic. Stay disciplined and focus on the numbers.

Highly Targeted Promotions

A lot of search engine optimization work will be focused on capturing searchers who are only looking for or information with some focus on capturing shoppers looking for the particular product or solution. Paid search however, is all about buying and selling. Plus, the searchers who click on your page's search ads realize they are clicking on an ad and click anyway! Paid search also has options to identify searchers by geographic locations. This can be a real boon to businesses with a local footprint.

Lots, and Lots, and Lots of Keywords

Search engine optimization requires you to focus on a few very important keywords and focus, focus, focus! This prioritization of your efforts means you leave a lot of other keywords untapped … unless you plug them into a paid search program (which, by the way, is an excellent strategy)!

You simply cannot optimize any site for hundreds, let alone thousands, of keywords. But paid search programs allow you to target an unlimited number of keywords. That means you can reach deep down, and deeper still, into the vast pool of words your customers are searching on. GDM InterActive has special strategies for making this deep reach work, give us a call at (888)-GDM-4977 or send us an e-mail to discuss how we can make them work for you

Flexibility

Paid search allows you to test on the fly and see results come back to you, sometimes within a single day. This speed of implementation for paid search can be very powerful for timely product sales, split testing and a whole lot more. Actually, paid search is so flexible you can easily get lost in the forest trying to test too many different variables. The upside is that you are guaranteed to learn a lot about which keywords work and don't work along the way.

Making changes and testing your keywords strategy for organic search engine optimization could take months and cost a lot in both time and money. Why? Because search engine optimization techniques reach so much deeper into the guts of your website. Search engine optimization ends up involving not only you , your marketing team, but also your IT and web people. Organizing it all can be quite a task. Because of this you will find it is very important to develop the right keyword strategy in the first place which means a significant amount of upfront research and planning that all costs money.

Don't get me wrong... search engine optimization is an excellent element of your marketing mix And should not be neglected. But for speed and flexibility you can't beat paid search advertising.

Greater control of your marketing message

Paid search advertising lets small businesses like you control what your listings say and how they look on the page showing all the search query results. Yes, you will be limited in the number of words you can use, but it’s a small price to pay for the control you get in return.

Search engine optimization requires you to focus on a few very important keywords. What’s more, you never really have control over what you’re organic search listings look like. Search engines select what are called "snippets" from your page title and page content (very often a range of words before and after the targeted key word).

Landing pages for paid search do not need to be tightly linked and cross linked into the pages of your website like they need to be for effective search engine optimization results. With PPC promotions, you can create a landing page for every promotion that has no purpose other than to greet your visitors and steer them in the right direction, test copy variables, or even make a sale on the page! You can create a page for the month of July, drive traffic to it for 30 days and then turn it off. It's a beautiful thing.

Successful search engine optimization pages need to be deeply linked into your overall site in order to get ranked well. Plus, for seasonal events or messages, search engine optimaization is next to useless since it can take up to three months for a newly edited page to be indexed and ranked by the major search engines. 

But it’s not for everyone

Paid search can be difficult for low price, low margin products. Plus, for noncommercial websites who cannot attach a value to their web traffic, or have no conversion cycle, paid search is probably not the way to go.

But for most small businesses that are trying to acquire new customers, gather leads for telephone follow-up, or making a sale on the page, paid search definitely deserves a place in even the smallest marketing budgets.