SEO Belfast

If you’re a business in Northern Ireland then here’s 10 Reasons to use PPC (Pay Per Click) and in particular Google Adwords for your business. If you’ve got a website and you need more clients, leads and sales then chances are Pay Per Click advertising can provide a cost effective form of online marketing. If you’ve haven’t got a website then it’s time you got one.

When I mention PPC people often seem shocked and respond with “why should I or why would I want to pay for a click?”

Well in the offline world If you owned a furniture store and somehow knew that there were potentially 50 couples in your area that wanted to buy a black leather sofa, and that’s exactly what your shop specialised in, would you pay to get these visitors into your furniture shop and then try and convert them into sales, or would you rather just wait and hope that they turn up irrespective of any marketing.

Chances are that they won’t know that you exist, what your prices are, or that you specialise in black leather sofas, or even if a few of them do then the rest won’t. Even if you paid them a little something to turn up you’ll still make a hefty profit if your profit margins are good and you know how to get them to part with their money. PPC works on the same basis. Target people looking for the exact product and service that you supply, and if it’s a quality product at a decent price on a decent looking website then you’re on a winner.

Below are the 10 reasons:

1. PPC is immediate. Pay per click online advertising gives you visibility straight away. Create an account, set up billing preferences, campaigns and adgroups, do keyword research, set up your landing page and you are off and running. Takes an awful lot more time to target the organic listings with a full campaign, particularly if it’s a competitive market and you’re on a new domain name and you don’t already.

2. PPC gives you a greater reach. You can target a wider range of terms and a greater geographic region relevant to your services and business that you might not rank for in the organic listings. If one day you decide you want to branch out and target the South of Ireland or the UK then you can do that straightaway.

3. PPC has great accountability. With PPC you can monitor your performance. PPC and Adwords lets you control your spend, set a budget, set the regions you wish to market in, set the maximum price you’ll pay for a click, pay only for clicks you receive, count the number of conversions. You can see your return on investment. If it’s not working then you can stop it.

4. Google Analytics. You can link your Google Analytics with your Google Adwords PPC account and track your keywords to see which ones provide leads and sales and which ones don’t.

5. The vast majority of your competitors aren’t using SEO and they aren’t using PPC, in fact believe it or not most of them aren’t even using the internet! As I’ve said before, the web isn’t just about global markets for the majority of businesses it’s about local markets, so if you’re a solicitor in Belfast, a graphic designer in Dunmurry, or an accountant in Lisburn it’s time to get an internet strategy. It doesn’t cost the world, but there are very good returns with proper investment.

6. Online Marketing has taken over from other forms of marketing. Online marketing is profitable, it DOES work. Yellow Pages and offline paper directories just don’t cut it for many business models. Not all online marketing works though, you’ll need to test them to see if they suit your business.

7. PPC can bring you targeted traffic, from targeted areas. Set a region, country or area that you wish to target and your ad will only show for that area. If you’re not too convinced about Google’s location targeting you can use regional qualifiers e.g. “Tax Accountant in Northern Ireland” and this will only show your ad when someone types in those exact words so it’s very relevant.

8. Even if you do run a successful SEO campaign in the free standard organic listings, PPC can provide you with more real estate and more clout on the front pages of Google. If you appear in both listings then that’s 1 less spot for a competitor and it can definitely be a credibility factor. If PPC is profitable then keeping it running.

9. It’s cost effective, you only pay for clicks. With a targeted campaign that’s looking for conversions rather than as many clicks as possible you can dissuade clickers. For instance I mentioned the example of an ‘expensive leather sofa’, well you can make sure your ad doesn’t show for those that are looking for ‘cheap leather sofa’. Target more specific words that are more likely to result in a conversion and you’re on a winner.

10. PPC is a great market research tool. You can find out exactly what terms people are using to find your service and product, what they are looking for and what converts. This information is a goldmine and can help you create a more profitable organic campaign or if it’s a disaster make you think twice before investing more.

Pay Per Click like Search Engine Optimisation and like Web design/development can be profitable. Businesses are profiting handsomely from their investment, maybe it’s about time the businesses (both small and large) in Northern Ireland tapped into some of these markets.