With today’s digital technology we have the ability to make a positive impact with our marketing by using per click advertising for small business. Properly managed, a good PPC campaign can result in more revenue, but done wrong, it could actually be detrimental to the business. Rest assured, almost any small business with a great website can benefit from a strategically targeted ppc campaign. Regardless if you are self performing or outsourcing your marketing campaigns, it must be managed correctly to avoid wasting money. As shown in the example below, you’ll want to take special care to avoid targeting to the wrong audience.

Pay Per Click Advertising for Small Business – Unfortunate Experience

I recently spoke to an expert specializing in pay per click advertising for small businesses and he shared about a meeting with a successful small business owner. It was recently discovered his outsourced PPC manager was targeting the wrong audience and losing revenue! In fact, the story told was just darn heartbreaking! The intent was to attract local business but he found out the company was not correctly using geo targeting. It turned out the owner was paying thousands of dollars for unwanted out of state clicks. Then, he discovered 60% of his PPC clicks were from visitors searching for directions to another business! This is just one unfortunate story but a good example for small business owners to be cautious of how their PPC dollars are being spent.

If you’re interested in outsourcing your SEO and/or PPC to an expert with a proven track record we have first hand experience with Four Chord Digital Marketing and encourage you to contact them.

Here are some tips to help small business owners avoid mistakes and make a positive impact with their online marketing.

7 Tips to Avoid Wasting Money on PPC Advertising

It all starts with a custom designed website built specifically for your business, with extended functionality and custom landing pages to capture leads. If your site is not capturing leads, spend whatever is needed and GET THE JOB DONE RIGHT! Do NOT pay of advertising unless your website has special landing pages to take advantage of the action.
Check out Google’s Best Practices for PPC and other online advertising. Business owners do NOT need to be experts, but they should at least learn enough to know what to expect from whomever they intrust to manage their campaigns! If the decision is made to forego the training, hire a trusted employee or outsource the task to someone experienced with PPC marketing.
Have a Strategic Plan! When spending money on advertising there should be systems in place to make intelligent adjustments and effectively execute a strategic plan of action.
Verify your campaign is targeting your audience. If you have a donut shop in Los Angeles there is no reason to target people searching for a donut shop in St Louis!
Fully utilize negative keywords. This is a big one and nearly most newbies or do it your selfers have no idea how important it is to disable those keywords you do not want to appear for. Getting this wrong can cost advertisers dearly!
Your website landing pages must be inviting, up to date, and they resemble the headlines used for the ads. When potential customers click on an ad, they feel more comfortable if the web page they land on looks like the ad they clicked.
Nowadays, even if not accepting credit cards, any page accepting contact information should be secure. That is, you should have a security certificate. Also, Google is ranking secure sites higher than similar non secure sites.

No Magic Formula

There’s no magic formula to achieve results with pay per click advertising. In fact, those who claim to have the so called inside secrets should be avoided. Pay per click advertising for small business is no simple task. There are experienced experts available to help set goals and achieve the most for your marketing expenditure.

When choosing a manager or for your PPC campaign avoid those making claims that sound too good to be true. Choose a known professional with experience specifically related to pay per click advertising for small business. If self performing your campaign, head on over to Google and invest some time and a few bucks in training. Anyone can learn, but be prepared to lose a little money while learning. Just keep your PPC bid amounts low until you get the hang of it.

Effective PPC marketing really is a science, but it also requires some simple common sense. If nothing else, we encourage you to learn just enough to ask your account manager the right questions, and keep your eye on the ball.

There is much more to learn pay per click marketing for small business. We have only addressed a small bit but it should be enough to encourage business operators to learn more before jumping in. We look forward to your comments about Pay Per Click Advertising for Small Business.

Pay Per Click Advertising for Small Business