Pay per click are the evil you can't live without to many business owners. Using SEO techniques to make it to page one can be very costly, and the more your competition spends, the more you have to spend to keep up. Let's face it, only three listings make it to page one, and only one is number one no matter what those emails promise you for $150 a month.
Pay Per click ads are the fastest and easiest way to reach potential new customers and stay in front of existing customers, so why do so many business owner hate pay per click ads? The reality is very simple. Most of the time the pay per click or PPC campaigns are so generic that when people "click" they don't connect. The simple fact of marketing is "no connection, no sale." It doesn't matter if your ads run on Google, Bing, Yahoo, Facebook or Beach Street News.
So how do you fix it? There are three main areas I look at for clients and you should look at for your own ads.
The first is the primary theme of your business. What is your "unique selling proposition" or USP? If you can't define it, then why would your customers come to you instead of your competitor. If you answer is price, I have to pull a Dr. Phil and ask "How is that working for you?"
Your business solves a problem, and you need to do it in a way that no one else does. If you don't, pay per click won't get you more long term business. In fact it might not get you any business. Your USP is what you will use for your headline to attract new clients and remind old ones who you are and why they should do business with you.
The second area we look at is your customers. What is it that they connect with when they choose your business over the competition? When you figure this out, you have some keywords to use with your PPC campaign.
Finally, the connection between you and your customers. When someone clicks your ad because the headline attracted their attention, and the keywords that displayed the ad is something they were seeking, they still need to see something that resonates with them. The place your ad forwards them to is called a "landing page". Where they land is just as important as the keywords they used, and the headline you hooked them with.
Their keyword choices and your USP need to bring them to a page on your website or an ad page that says to them. "These are my guys".
If you can't do that, your PPC campaign is a waste of money.
When you line up these three areas, your PPC ads target the right customers, and the "landing page" gets them to call or come in, and isn't that the real goal of a PPC campaign?
