We have come to the last post in our series on pay-per-click advertising, that is, the use (or misuse) of Google AdWords. So far we have discussed the numerous misconceptions that can result in attracting unqualified prospects, ineffective advertising and blowing your budget.

Today, we examine one last misconception related to the use of your ad space and a final mistaken belief for the whole existence of pay-per-click.
 
Misconception#4: A company should include their name in the ad so people know who they are.

A pay-per-click ad allows for 25 characters in the headline and two lines consisting of 35 characters each. That’s not a lot of room to get your message across to qualified prospects while using your budget wisely. People often waste their characters repeating information.

For example, an ad will read “Great discounts at shoes.com” and the last line is the URL www.shoes.com

What I’ve learned: Every word counts in the pay-per-click ad space. Don’t waste your characters.

Google allows you to insert your website at the bottom of each ad, yet people still find it necessary to include it in the body.  With such limited space, the body of a ppc ad must be used as efficiently as possible. Convey your message well and interest in your website will follow.
 
That’s right. I said convey your message to generate interest in your website. This brings us to my final misconception.

Misconception #5: Pay-per-click ads should be designed to sell the product.

People often fall into the belief that they need to sell their product with their ppc ads similar to the way they would with traditional advertising.
 
What I’ve learned: Sell your website and the product sales will follow.

Pay-per-click ads offer such limited space to convey a message which makes it very difficult to truly sell your product or service. Use your ad to create interest in your website and then set your website up to convert the people who come in via your ppc ads.
 
Overall, generating success with ppc advertising campaigns is a process that is built one component at a time. A successful campaign must be built on a deep understanding of your customer, well-researched keywords, a well-managed budget and thoughtful messaging. I hope that you walk away having learned something new about this subject. After all, I got to learn these lessons the hard way. Here’s hoping you don’t have to stumble through these same mistakes.
 
My next series will tackle usability practices and the common misconceptions about how people use websites. You’ll be surprised how common assumptions result in big losses of consumer traffic.

Search Engine Marketing, Uncategorized Bing Search, Google AdWords, internet marketing, pay-per-click ads, Search Engine Marketing, sem, Yahoo Search Marketing

A couple of weeks ago, I began a blog series discussing elements of digital marketing and common misconceptions associated with each. My recent work at a digital marketing firm shed light on these misconceptions which led me to believe that others may share similar false notions.

This blog series is all about Search Engine Marketing

The purpose of this series on Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is to reveal the truths behind the misconceptions and to clear up some of the confusion regarding digital marketing and its practices.
 
So let’s define search engine marketing…

Search engine marketing, or SEM, is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs) through the use of paid placement, contextual advertising, search engine optimization and paid inclusion.

It is important to know that SEM is the larger umbrella under which many elements of digital marketing are placed, but is also the term most commonly used when referring to the pay-per-click ads found at the top and right hand side of SERPs.

For the sake of this blog series, SEM will refer to pay-per-click ads or paid search listings.

Users can access pay-per-click services, such as Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing and Bing Search to create, manage and distribute paid search campaigns. Armed with the overall definition of SEM and free tools, can’t we simply move on and begin creating paid search ads? Stay tuned for the answer in my next blog.

Digital Marketing, Search Engine Marketing Bing Search, Google AdWords, internet marketing, pay-per-click ads, Search Engine Marketing, sem, Yahoo Search Marketing