Most small businesses must make do with a minimal online advertising budget in order to increase traffic on their websites. One sound way to increase traffic without spending a lot of upfront money for advertising is through pay per click. The pay per click advertising technique means that businesses only pay for the ad when someone clicks on it. When a consumer clicks on the ad, he or she is taken to the e-commerce retailer’s website. These top five benefits for using pay per click advertising can help small businesses make the most of their advertising dollars.
Planned Keywords
Pay per click advertising allows small businesses to select the keywords the search engines will use when presenting their ads on the screen of a mobile phone, tablet or computer. While the search engine acts as a sort of property management company by using specific algorithms to determine when a small business’ ad will appear, it does so when using keywords specified by the business. The planned keywords ensure that consumers searching on the internet get relevant ads that are timely and appropriate.
Targeted Traffic
In a pay per click advertising campaign, Google and the other search engines only show the small business’ ad when the consumer searched using one of the predetermined keywords. If the predetermined keywords are crochet, yarn and thread, a person searching for “gluten-free banana bread recipes” will not be shown the ad, but someone searching for “wool yarn” would. The targeted traffic increases the likelihood that consumers directed to a website will explore the website and make a purchase.
Free Advertising
The ad of a small business will show up on the search engine results sidebar when a consumer enters one of the predetermined keyword. Even if the consumer does not click on the ad, he or she still sees the ad. This results in a considerable amount of free advertising for small businesses. The sight of a business name, logo and product may inspire consumers to find the website on their own and make a purchase even without clicking on the ad.
Increased Overall Traffic
Pay per click advertising allows the advertisement of a small business to be placed on a variety of website search results. Someone searching for crochet yarn may find the ad on search result pages for local gift shops, local boutiques and on knitting class search result pages. All of these ad placements can result in increased overall traffic to a small business website, explains this .
Competitive Bidding
When placing a pay per click ad, small businesses get to make bids on how much they are willing to pay for each consumer click on the ad. The higher the bid, the more prominently and frequently the ad will be shown. However, even low bids will still be shown on relevant search results. The competitive bidding makes the ads affordable on small business budgets.
