Pay Per Click Traffic

Poll

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Author:
Cari Haus

Copyright 2005 Log Cabin Rustics

In this age of speed dialing, T1 lines and other forms of high-tech instant gratification, many webmasters find themselves tempted to engage in pay-per-click advertising. After all, if you’ve just designed a state-of-the-art website, there’s nothing quite as gratifying as a steady stream of traffic right from the start. Webmasters with open wallets have found that pay-per-click can provide traffic within hours or even minutes of a website’s launch.

Pay-per-click Pros

Before considering the perils and pitfalls of pay-per-click, it’s worthwhile to remember that in some instances, pay-per-click is a good market strategy. A number of reputable SEO firms combine pay-per-click management with search engine optimization as a method of getting their clients the clicks they need. Pay-per-click can be an especially effective strategy for:

•companies trying to beat a competitor to market with a new product who want to garner substantial traffic while waiting for their SEO efforts to kick in
•webmasters with deep pockets who are more concerned about establishing a quick presence than long-term return on investment
•webmasters who are reaping a return on investment high enough to justify expenditures on pay-per-click

Significant Drawbacks

Although there are valid reasons to engage in pay-per-click advertising campaigns, there are also enough drawbacks to give any webmaster pause.

Companies considering pay-per-click need to determine the primary purpose of their marketing campaign—whether it be immediate sales, building website value, or a combination of the two. If immediate sales is the goal and a worthwhile return on investment is being achieved, pay-per-click may be the strategy of choice—at least until good search engine positioning can be obtained.

Webmasters seeking to build a valuable web-based business should remember that whenever the money “spigot” for pay-per-click stops, so do the clicks. In contrast, clicks resulting from an investment in search engine optimization will continue for months and possibly years to come.

Monitoring ROI

Return on investment (ROI) is another key factor to monitor during the implementation of any pay-per-click marketing strategy. ROI can drop dramatically as market forces change. An increase in competition, when combined with rising costs-per-click and plummeting product prices, can quickly spell doom for a previously profitable ad campaign.

Computing ROI for pay-per-click can be a bit tricky. Since most sites receive “free” traffic resulting from SEO efforts, it’s important to try and ferret out what percentage of sales are resulting from pay-per-click and what percentage are resulting from your other SEO efforts.

Choosing which sites and search terms to allocate advertising dollars to can also be somewhat daunting. Rapid changes in per-click charges can also be challenging to manage well. If your bid is #1 and our competitors lower their bids, you may be left paying a higher price than necessary to maintain top positioning. This is the webmaster’s equivalent of throwing money down the drain. Unless you plan to sit by your computer watching per-click charges on an hourly basis, some type of pay-per-click management is, in my opinion, an absolute necessity.

In running a successful pay-per-click campaign, there are also questions to be answered about whether to try for top positioning or settle for some lesser spot, and which pay-per-click ads pull the best.

While I have learned “never to say never”, I am not presently using pay-per-click for any of my websites. Though I have used it in the past and may resort to it again, my website is doing better than ever without it. Pay-per-click is just one more thing to manage, and, if not managed well, can become a financial drain in a hurry. I’m a pretty busy person, and probably a tightwad as well. As a result, pay-per-click isn’t part of my current marketing arsenal.

That doesn’t mean, however, that it might not be right for your site. Do some testing, study it out, and consider the “cons” described in this article. In the words of an old adage, “if something is worth doing at all, it is worth doing well.” This is especially true for things that cost money. My advice is to keep that thought firmly in mind whenever you open your webmaster wallet.

About the Author
Cari Haus has been successfully selling rustic log furniture and beds on the Internet since the late 1990’s. Copyright 2005 by Cari Haus, website http://www.logcabinrustics.com/. Permission is granted to reprint this article, either online or in written publications, as long as the copyright information, this paragraph, and a link address or a link to the Log Cabin Rustics website is attached at the end of the article.

A Quick Note From The Publisher... If you like the article above, you may be interested in the following article which is also related to Pay Per Click... You Need To Understand Pay Per Click "Pay-Per Click", is an easy to understand advertising strategy. Most people are on the internet in search of information. In fact, 80% of the internet traffic is searching. Your Web site needs to be known if traffic and business is to come your way. In order for your site to be known it should be in the top 10 or 20 places on the search engine. Google has over 70% of all the searches right now. So, in the long run you need to be placed highly in Google. Next comes Yahoo and MSN and then the smaller engines. Most people only reach up to the third page of a search engine so the lower your rank, the lesser the chance you will be clicked. In "Pay-Per Click" advertising, you pay to be always visible on the internet. You select keywords or key phrases about your website, and the highest bidder ranks the best. There is no upfront cost. You only pay after a visitor clicks your link. This is why it is called "Pay-Per Click". Everyday millions of people around the world click on Pay-Per Click Advertising Campaign. With the booming internet industry and the ever growing online business, an ad of virtually anybody on the planet can be seen on the internet anywhere in the world. The "Pay-Per Click" advertising campaign is the premier growth area in online marketing. An estimated $741.2 million was spent on "Pay-Per Click" advertising last year alone. The usual search engine optimization can take weeks or even months to produce results. This type of advertising can attract customers at an instant. Why? Because, this cutting edge ad campaign can be placed on any website and can be viewed by potential online customers, anywhere, anytime and all the time. Here is the challenge, is placing the ads on proper websites that will attract possible customers for a specific...