5 Reasons to Run Pay-Per-Clicks Ads - Even If You’re Already on the First Page of Google
Many of the inquiries that we receive are from businesses who are interested in getting found on the search engines. There are two ways to show up on search results, Paid Search and Organic Search.
For the most part, most business owners are interested in our SEO services, because they don’t like the idea of having to pay every time someone clicks on a search result. However, while there are some things to pay attention to and optimize on your website to help get better search rankings, no one outside of the search engines have control over the search algorithm, and SEO efforts can take some weeks or months, before results are seen.
There are differences between the top options as outlined in our article "What is the difference between paid vs organic search traffic?", but fact is they don't have to be seen as mutually exclusive options. In fact, we offer both services for many of our clients, and sometimes we will use Adwords data to help determine their SEO efforts and content strategy.
For companies who would like to get leads from Google searches, here are 5 reasons why you should consider running pay-per-click ad campaigns:
CUSTOMIZED MESSAGING
Search results display the text that you specify in your meta title and meta description tag. However, since the amount of text being displayed is limited and restricted, you cannot choose what to show when someone searches for specific keywords. For example, if someone searches “catering Prince Edward County”, your Organic Search result will show as:
However, if someone searches for wedding catering specifically, your meta title and meta description both don’t display the keywords your prospect is looking for and might be overlooked when they quickly scan the pages of returned results.
With pay-per-click ads, you can control and customize different ads to be displayed when certain keywords are searched. For instance, Prince Edward County Catering set up two different ads, one to promote wedding catering and the other for corporate events catering. Your ad will appear as follows for each search result:
PROMOTIONS & AD VARIATIONS
Pay-per-click is also a useful tool to run a special promotion or a different messaging to increase click throughs to your site. Since Organic Search messaging cannot be controlled, using Adwords allows you to publicize a special your company is running or try variations of text content to see which one pulls better response.
DIRECTED LANDING PAGE
With Organic Searches, the page prospects are directed to is dictated by the search term and the search engine’s choice. With Paid Search, you can control the page which will be displayed and match the landing page to the search phrase. For example, if someone is searching for ‘metal roofing contractors’, you can direct prospects to your metal roofing page instead of the home page which consists of both asphalt, flat and metal roofing services.
IMMEDIATE VISABILITY
Optimizing webpages for SEO is an on-going process that requires updates on a regular basis. When new content/webpages are added, it may take some time before the search engine’s algorithm picks it up and inadvertently may take a while before the page reaches the first page in Organic Searches. Your webpage may show up on the first page for all related terms in your industry but it may be overlooked by the search engine for other terms that are loosely related. For example, Prince Edward County B&B shows up on the first page when a prospect searches for “b&b in Prince Edward County”. However, it may not show up when the search is for “places to stay in Prince Edward County” because the SEO for your website did not include those terms. You can update the SEO with these terms, but it will not take into effect immediately. But since high season is fast approaching, you do not have the liberty of time to wait for the algorithms to pick up this new adjustment to your website. This is when paid search can be utilized. A campaign can be set up within 24-48 hours with keyword/terms “places to stay Prince Edward County” and your prospects will not be lost.
NEW GOOGLE LAYOUT
With the recent layout changes to Google’s search results, the #1 position of the Organic Search result will now appear as the 5th listing. This is because Google has removed the Paid Search from the right hand side and added an additional Paid Search ad along with the original 3 ads, pushing the Organic Search results down 1 spot. In addition, they will continue to show ads at the bottom of the search results. With this being said, you may have been on the first page, but might have been bumped to the second page, courtesy of the recent layout changes. For more information on the impact of Google's new layout on Organic Search, click here.
Old Google Layout
New Google Layout
At Quinte Marketing, we help our clients optimize websites to achieve first page rankings for Organic Search results as well as create compelling Paid Search campaigns to increase click throughs, run special promotions or simply test content effectiveness. Whatever your marketing objective is, our experienced team can help you achieve it.
