PPC Suggestions: Cost Comparison Versus Blogging for Small Businesses
One of the things that always gets me in online marketing is the number of small businesses that purchase PPC campaigns and get little value from it. I'm not going to go off on PPC, because there is a time and a place for it. Some companies use PPC very effectively to drive millions of dollars of revenue. My view on PPC is that if you're not an expert, follow these simple rules.
1) Have a Product to Sell or an Instant Transaction: Don't use PPC for brand recognition without a larger campaign behind it. If you are selling services that don't require an instant purchase, or if you are trying to drive traffic so you can make money advertising, PPC is probably not for you. This doesn't mean PPC can't work for you, but you have to know how to make it work in a full campaign, and that's more complicated than just buying keywords (or paying someone to buy them for you).
2) MAKE LANDING PAGES: This one baffles me. There is no excuse for having your PPC campaign point to your website or blog. It takes very little time to create a landing page that directs clickers to buy a product. Sending them to your website, where they then have to search for a product is a waste of time.
3) If PPC Works for You, Plan For When It Doesn't: You should hear this. PPC Campaigns are only as successful as your dumbest competitor. If PPC works for you, it can work for your competitors. When they realize this, they enter the PPC space and bid up your keywords. This means that any advantage is short-lived, and the cost of PPC grows over time while the value declines. What are you doing to plan past your PPC success? And worse, what if you're the last one in the pool?
A few words on longevity. I worked with a client last year on a birth announcement service that was strictly online. We stopped blogging in August, but since then over 1700 people** have visited the site from search engine referrals, and even dormant, 10-15 a day come to the site. The cost to keep this blog up is $50/year. Do that math. Having once blogged, and even on a dormant site, the client is getting a PPC value of $.009 per visitor that should last several years. And they do nothing to maintain it.
**I realize this is a small example. 1700 visitors isn't a lot, but it's relevant to that particular site. Blogging increased traffic to the site 150% when it was active, and drove the rank of the site up in relevant search terms.
1) Have a Product to Sell or an Instant Transaction: Don't use PPC for brand recognition without a larger campaign behind it. If you are selling services that don't require an instant purchase, or if you are trying to drive traffic so you can make money advertising, PPC is probably not for you. This doesn't mean PPC can't work for you, but you have to know how to make it work in a full campaign, and that's more complicated than just buying keywords (or paying someone to buy them for you).
2) MAKE LANDING PAGES: This one baffles me. There is no excuse for having your PPC campaign point to your website or blog. It takes very little time to create a landing page that directs clickers to buy a product. Sending them to your website, where they then have to search for a product is a waste of time.
3) If PPC Works for You, Plan For When It Doesn't: You should hear this. PPC Campaigns are only as successful as your dumbest competitor. If PPC works for you, it can work for your competitors. When they realize this, they enter the PPC space and bid up your keywords. This means that any advantage is short-lived, and the cost of PPC grows over time while the value declines. What are you doing to plan past your PPC success? And worse, what if you're the last one in the pool?
A few words on longevity. I worked with a client last year on a birth announcement service that was strictly online. We stopped blogging in August, but since then over 1700 people** have visited the site from search engine referrals, and even dormant, 10-15 a day come to the site. The cost to keep this blog up is $50/year. Do that math. Having once blogged, and even on a dormant site, the client is getting a PPC value of $.009 per visitor that should last several years. And they do nothing to maintain it.
The value of blogging is long-term returns. The value of PPC is immediacy.Regular blogging yields even higher returns. StlRecruiting.com brings in 80-90 referrers/week just from the search engines dredging up old content. That's a PPC value of $.001 per visitor for work already completed. When I first started, I targeted people with SEO and PPC budgets for blog campaigns. It was my primary method of measuring metrics. When pitching firms on social media, compare the returns on your traffic and SEO ranking with that of the PPC, SEO, and press mentions (from PR). You'll find your sales pitch more compelling.
**I realize this is a small example. 1700 visitors isn't a lot, but it's relevant to that particular site. Blogging increased traffic to the site 150% when it was active, and drove the rank of the site up in relevant search terms.
Labels: blogging metrics, blogging ROI, PPC, seo
posted by James Durbin @ 5:18 AM PERMALINK
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