Increased Brand Awareness via PPC and SEOGoogle AdWordsGoogle sells sponsored listings that appear above and to the right-hand side of its regular search results, these listings are called Google AdWords. Paid search programs allow site owners to "bid" on the terms they wish to appear for. You agree to pay a certain amount each time someone clicks on your listing. This is why sponsored listings are referred to as "pay-per-click" (PPC) or "cost-per-click" (CPC) advertising.
Google AdWords ranks sponsored listings based on a number of variables including the CPC (bid price), click-through-rate (CTR) and landing page quality. If your goal is to build visibility on search engines quickly, then Google AdWords is an essential option to explore. It can put you in the top results of many major search engines within a short period of time. Google distributes its paid ads to other partners, with some major sites listed on the Search Engine Results Chart:
This provides you with exposure to more potential traffic. When setting up an AdWords campaign, you may choose to have your ads appear in the Search Network and/or Google’s Content Network (AdSense), or you may opt-out of either.
It is worthwhile for anyone to open a Google AdWords account and experiment with how paid listings may help drive traffic to a site, or use the service as a keyword research tool. Google's self-service AdWords program charges a per-click fee, in addition to a $5 activation fee, but there is no minimum monthly spend. As you continue to participate in paid search advertising, you may find that the editorial or "free" listings generated by your submissions to directories and crawlers have kicked in. While some marketers elect to eliminate their paid search ad spend when this happens, you may find that you want to continue spending, or perhaps even increase your budget, to target terms for which you don't receive good editorial placement. |