A Proven Method for Driving People to Your Website

Every company wants potential customers to find their website on the first page of Google or Yahoo. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Paid Search (including Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising) are proven tools for increasing your ranking and presence on the web. Considering a recent Harris Interactive research poll shows that about 80% of all web traffic begins at a search engine, much of your online effort should focus on how you're found.

SEO and PPC each have their own distinct rules, and require time and dedication to be done with respectable returns. The rewards in potential marketing power are awesome. There has never been a better tool devised for marketing products and services that people want than the Internet. The trick is getting your products or services to the top of the list.

Paid Search Really Pays

PPC is an effective online vehicle for connecting buyers to sellers within search engines, with an estimated 30% of web users clicking on paid ads. According to the research firm Piper Jaffray, average customer acquisition costs through a search engine are anywhere from $7 to $10. Yellow pages, the nearest competitor, costs twice as much ($15 to $25). Email campaigns are almost six to eight times as expensive ($40 to $80). And then there is organic search, which is not guaranteed and also takes many months to show results. Paid search, however, is immediate. Simply put, paid search is a must for campaigns and new product/service launches.

How Paid Search Works

PPC has clear guidelines. The Overland Agency believes strongly in this avenue and its power to boost leads and sales for a wide variety of organizations. However, it is recommended that you attach your initiative to a focused, online business goal (attracting leads, conversions, etc.). Here are other rules to follow:

• Avoid over-managing your ads. Make doubly sure that you have a relevant sample size before making changes to your campaign. Search campaigns require time to be optimized.
• Don’t limit your campaigns to Google and Yahoo. Competing search engines such as MSN, Miva, and ASK offer a lower cost and broaden your reach.
• Remember local search. Local search allows you to target your ads to the appropriate region, state, or city where you do business or have target audiences.
• Reserve the time and money to analyze your results. Analysis and adjustments help you relate your campaign to your fixed bottom line return: the number of leads and/or sales you are trying to generate.
• Don’t forget about the competition. You should never plagiarize, but by benchmarking against competitors’ efforts, you can gain valuable insight into elements to incorporate into your own campaigns.