SEM and PPC
By"Discover How Pay Per Click Works"
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Search Engine Marketing and PPC
Another Form of SEM
Pay-Per-Click advertising is another form of SEM. SEMPO defines Pay-Per-Click Advertising as a model of online advertising in which advertisers pay only for each click on their ads. These ads direct searchers to a specified landing page on the advertiser’s website.
Charges per click-through are based on advertiser bids in hybrid ad space auctions and are influenced by competitor bids, competition for keywords and search engines’ proprietary quality measure of advertiser ad and landing page content. (If that sounds confusing, just bear with me and it should start to make sense.)
While it’s not necessary to participate in PPC, it’s an affordable, easy-to-manage form of search engine marketing. Also known as paid search advertising, PPC account structure can be broken down in this way: Main Account, Campaign, Ad Group, Keyword, Text Ads. Within each account you may have several campaigns, and within a campaign you may have several ad groups, within each ad group, several keywords and so on. This SEM technique works like this:
*Open an account with your selected search engine’s PPC program (AdWords for Google, Yahoo! Sponsored Search, Microsoft adCenter.)
*Build your account beginning with keyword research and round up related keywords together into keyword groups (or ad groups.)
*Bid upon particular keywords relevant to your website using the search engine’s keyword tool.
*Set targeting- Each search engine allows you to target by search or content. Search targeting means your ads will only appear in the search results located on the engine’s homepage.
*Content targeting means your ads will show up in articles, blogs or other websites that contain the keyword you are targeting.
*Write relevant, keyword-rich text ads that center around your ad group- These ads are free until a searcher clicks on on Bids are entered into the search engine for your keyword, and the search engine displays your ads in their sponsored results section.
*Each time a visitor clicks on your ad within the search engine, you are charged by the search engine Your ad positioning within the search engine’s sponsored listings is determined by your bid price, the quality score of your ad and the performance of your ad relative to the performance of your competitors’ ads.
Pay-Per-Click ads allow advertisers to deliver targeted results within each of the search engines based upon the visitor’s search query.
SEMPO defines a search query as the word or phrase a person types into a search field, which initiates search engine results page (SERP) listings.
Utilizing advanced analytics and reporting with Google Analytics, Yahoo Web Analytics or other third party tracking software allows advertisers to understand the behavior of the visitor by analyzing the origin of the search and the patterns of activity on your website. Each search engine has a graphical user interface (GUI) where you can adjust your campaigns keywords, text ads, bids, scheduling and more.
You can choose to invest a small amount in PPC, which will enable you to test the keywords, ad text and conversion rates for your site before spending too much.
Pay-Per-Click is an essential advertising medium for most verticals, especially when selling products. Most businesses find that utilizing this form of SEM is essential to their marketing campaigns.
Find out more about Google AdWords, Yahoo! Sponsored Search and Microsoft adCenter to see what PPC solutions will work for your search engine marketing efforts.
