Google is, of course, the Gold Standard in the Internet Search business. Yahoo! Search, which is powered by Bing, and Bing Search itself (both owned by Microsoft), together hold just a third of the search market, with each garnering about 15% of Internet search traffic. Google remains the dominant player, consistently holding more than 65% of the market share. It’s no surprise, then, that when business owners choose to venture further into Search Engine Marketing (SEM) activities and want to start using paid searches, they consistently turn to Google.
But what, exactly is “paid search” on Google, and how is it helpful to small and mid-sized businesses? It’s not the simplest question to answer. Google is consistently introducing new, better, faster, and more effective methods of SEM through their paid search functionality, so the answer will continue to change. At its basis, paid search means you are no longer operating solely on “organic” search results. You’re paying Google to push your product, and you only pay when someone clicks on your ad, rather than relying completely on your site rankings to get your website pushed up to the top of the Google results list.
Even if your site consistently ranks in the top three results on relevant keyword searches, using paid search can be of great value, increasing your site traffic tremendously. In fact, research demonstrates that, “even if a brand is ranked in a #1 position, if a paid search ad is present, the site will receive 50% more clicks, on average.”
Paid search not only increases the quantity of your traffic, but the quality, with more high quality leads coming in this way as opposed to through organic search. It also helps ensure that the people who are looking for your service(s) or product(s) at any given moment are better able to find you, and that leads to improved sales conversions. Paid search is also an outstanding, low-cost branding opportunity that can increase the size and quality of your email database for direct email marketing efforts. It’s also remarkably scalable, offering outstanding adjustability and budget caps, so you use and pay for what you want, when you want it.
Whether you’re using Google’s Image Search; Media, Product, or Redemption Ads; Call Extensions; or Sitelinks, paid search is the next step once you’ve established a quality website. At TribalVision, we have PPC (pay-per-click) experts who design results-driven paid search campaigns for our clients. We look forward to doing the same for you.
