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PPC Advertising, is it worth it?
Still one of the best and sometimes more cost-effective ways of purchasing site traffic is using some of the pay-per-click options that are offered by Search Engines such as Google and Yahoo. It can be expensive if you do things wrong, so you will need to do some maths before you can decide if it's the right thing for you.
Nearly all Search Engines need you to bid on keywords or phrases that a searcher will type in. The top bidder gets the top placement on Search Results in the advertising area. You then pay the amount you bid each time someone clicks your advert.
Beware the Big Guns:
Bigger advertisers often take their bids to the max for competitive keywords. For an example try and find out how much you will need to bid on Google for the term "web hosting". Chances are it will be well over £5.00 per click! Big companies can afford to do this, try to stick to your limits and not get into "bidding wars" with them. Remember, not everyone who clicks an advert will purchase your products or services from you.
Doing the Maths:
If plan to use pay-per-click to get extra traffic, you should work out your visitor to purchase ratio. If for example 1 visitor in every 100 will make a purchase then a bid of 5p will cost you an estimated £5.00 to make once sale. If your profit margin is more than £5.00, you can probably get away with it. Obviously there are probably other factors to consider, but this should give you an idea.
Bidding on relevant words and phrases that aren't as popular is the best idea usually. Doing this will cut down on costs for every user that clicks your site while allowing you to target specific searchers better. For the most part, a customer who knows what they want will use more keywords and phrases when searching.
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