subject: Why Use Pay-Per-Click Advertising For Your Local Business? [print this page] Why Use Pay-Per-Click Advertising For Your Local Business?
Why PPC advertising? Because you can LASER TARGET your advertising to people who are SEARCHING for your product(s) or service(s). Is it good for any business? If people are searching for it, yes. If you are trying to advertise Y when people are searching for X, then no. PPC advertising rewards RELEVANCE more than anything else. If you're a church in the town of Stilwell, KS, and a person does a search for "churches in stilwell, ks" - then your ad would be quite relevant. If you're advertising bibles for sale based upon this same search query - then your ad would not be as relevant. If you're advertising a toy store based upon this same search query - then your ad would not be relevant at all. PPC advertising allows you to advertise to people when they're searching for your product(s) or service(s) - as aggressively as you would like. Is there any "downside" to PPC? Sure - because it allows you to advertise your business precisely when people are searching for your product(s) or service(s), it can be extremely competitive. Unlike the print yellow pages, there is a limited amount of VALUABLE space (i.e. page 1). In most cases, only the top 8 to 11 ads will be shown on page 1. If there are a lot of advertisers "bidding" on the same keywords, then the price-per-click is going to be higher. Sometimes, this means that being on page 1 isn't a reasonable thing to do. When this is the case, PPC advertising isn't nearly as impactful, as the traffic is all but gone. If you can't be on page 1, it's a waste of time on a local level, as the traffic isn't necessarily that high to begin with. I have seen "top bids" as high as $70 PER-CLICK ("breast augmentation los angeles "), and I have seen clients be able to get good positioning for under $0.10 per-click (church advertising). Evidently, people are willing to spend quite a bit more to alter their breasts than they are for a spiritual experience - who knew? Should you try PPC to advertise your business locally? If it is something that people search for, then yes. How do you know if they're searching for it? Use the Traffic Estimator listed below and see how many searches there are per month in the U.S. Then calculate what portion of that search quantity applies to your immediate trade area, and you can quickly get an idea of how many searches there are per month in your area. Another way to see how often people are searching for your product(s) or service(s) is to reference this: http://www.ypassociation.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Resources/ResearchInstitute/default.htm. This will tell you just how often people search for certain types of products and services using both the print and on-line yellow pages. If your business is something that people search for, then PPC is certainly worth testing.
