April 13th, 2010 by Nick

Many people supplement SEO with paid search engine advertising. Also called pay-per-click (PPC), the best known and most widely used format is Google AdWords.

Link building services often recommend paid advertising for new internet sites. It can take months for your link building strategies to work using search engine optimization alone. PPC gets you those elusive early visits and gives you a sure foundation upon which to build your business. It also has the benefit of giving you professional exposure and enhancing your online reputation. People feel safer clicking on AdWords than they do on unknown URLs.

However, for your campaign to work your ad must be effective; most SEO services will give you advice, but they won’t run an advertising campaign for you. So, how do you get those elusive clicks, honestly, so they pay for themselves? Clicks turning into sales isn’t guaranteed because there are no end of unscrupulous companies offering payment of a few cents to home workers, just to click on PPC ads. They know as well as we do, that those workers (usually in poorer countries) won’t be stopping to buy anything. Remember, link building strategies have to have an endpoint; that point, presumably, is converting clickers into customers.

The average AdWords ad is 95 characters long, and that includes spaces. To achieve the clicks you need you have to get a lot of information into those characters. This means information-rich content that is well written and professional. The ad needs to grab the attention in the first three words, or the moment is lost. So, how do you get your average browser to click on your ad?

The first thing to remember is that your ad isn’t a sales letter. So don’t waste words on a sales pitch, that’s what your site is for. The aim is simply to grab web surfers who have used certain keywords to seek out a landing page. For that page to be yours, your text should reflect those keywords as closely as possible.

In order to get the browser to click your link, you need to give them one thing: a clear promise. Usually, this promise is money i.e. how browsers can save it by clicking on your site rather than that of your competitors, but it could also be exam results, a healthier car engine, a healthier you, a successful legal outcome etc. So think about what your average customer wants and then get these benefits down in your ad. Naturally, the page they land on should back those claims to the hilt, so don’t use dishonesty in any way, unless your search engine reputation management plan is a negative one, that is.

The headline of your ad is the one that will stand out, so make it relevant and tantalising. By entering a search query, the browser has asked a question. Your headline should be relevant to their keyphrase and hold the answer, “I can solve your problem, but only if you walk this way” It’s a teasing approach that isn’t just limited to the internet. Look around, and you’ll see SEO link building strategies being used everywhere.

Link to us

If you want to link to this blog, copy and paste the following HTML code to your website.