The Importance of Paid Search Advertising

For companies new to Internet marketing, paid search advertising provides an approach to immediately convert marketing dollars into website traffic. Paid search advertising allows businesses to precisely control costs, target geographic locations, and adjust advertising spend for seasonal or other time-sensitive changes in the market. The value of the marketing dollar is easily quantified and tracked.

Paid Search Advertising Explained

In the world of Internet search, there are two hemispheres. The first hemisphere is organic search. In this case, search engines deliver results that are most relevant to the search terms entered. The second hemisphere is paid search. In this case, search engines provide results that are paid placements by businesses or organizations. Companies such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, and affiliated content providers make these services available.

Often paid search advertisements are above or to the right of the organic results. The advertisements shown to the user are directly related to the search criteria used. These ads are therefore specifically targeted to the user.

Paid search advertising campaigns use a pay-for-performance model. Regardless of how many times the ad is displayed during web searches, businesses only pay for an ad when someone clicks on it and goes to the business’ website.

A company that wishes to advertise with a search provider will establish a marketing budget for one or more keywords. The cost-per-click of each keyword varies depending on how popular the keyword is. Companies can also limit their advertising campaigns to specific areas (e.g. California only) and specific date ranges (e.g. around a specific holiday.)

Advertising campaign performance is easily monitored. Companies are able to track impressions, clicks, and conversions associated with each keyword. This allows advertisers to refine and improve advertising campaigns over time.

Choosing a Paid Search Advertising Provider

Optimizing a website and establishing and maintaining a paid search marketing campaign requires special expertise. The choice of targeted keywords is not merely a common sense matter. Mastery of various analytical tools is required to ensure optimum selection of keywords and the best spend of marketing dollars. Look for providers with experience writing and optimizing advertisements that best align with the chosen keywords. Providers must be able to provide transparent explanations of how every marketing dollar is being spent as a result of the paid search campaign (e.g. by website visitor, phone call, email, online form submitted or coupon printed.) Since user search engine preferences vary, providers will never choose a single search engine on which to base a campaign.

Our consultants at NetEdge Marketing offer paid search across all major search engines covering 98% of search traffic. We have worked with many small and medium sized businesses to establish the optimal paid search campaign budget and can help you do the same.

Many are surprised that a website isn’t even required. Our service includes designing and developing one-page websites that can turn clicks into calls. Businesses can get started by requesting a free Digital Marketing Analysis that will help assess your needs and develop a strategy for success.