For most companies, a website is essential to growing their business. But having a website doesn’t guarantee that you’ll get traffic. Once you’ve built your website, how do you actually get people to it? How do you reach your target market effectively and affordably? Many small businesses that are new to the online arena find themselves presented with these questions.

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is one of the best ways for a company to drive traffic to their website. Whether you’re promoting a new product or offer, or you’re just trying to create awareness of your brand and website, running ads on Google, Bing, or Yahoo can get you noticed.

Whatever your budget or objectives, chances are a pay-per-click campaign will work for you. Here are a few reasons why we believe PPC campaigns are often the best first choice for our clients:

1. Exposure—Your ad gets seen by thousands…and you only pay when someone clicks on it. While most new sites struggle to find themselves on the first page of Google for multiple search terms, your ad can appear on the first page of someone’s search on Google, Yahoo, or Bing.

2. Budget— You set your daily advertising budget on a PPC campaign. You decide how much you’re willing to pay when someone clicks on an ad, and remember, you only pay when someone actually clicks. More competitive keywords and industries may require higher costs for a click, but the more you’re willing to pay for your ad to be clicked, the more likely you are to appear at the top of the search results. Ultimately, you have complete control over what is spent each month. If you hit your monthly budget before the end of the month, your ads simply stop appearing in search results until the next month, when your budget starts over again.

3. Demographics—There are several demographics criteria you can use to set up your campaign to best target your ideal customer. From location to time of day or day of week, you can determine where you want your ads to appear, and when. If you’re a B-to-B company, chances are you don’t need to be running ads in the late evenings or weekends. Keeping your ads set to run during a certain time or day helps you control your budget, as your ads won’t appear at times that make no sense for your target audience. Most recently, Google added a new demographic that allows you to target by gender as well. While Google doesn’t know exactly who is doing the searches, they have enough history on that computer to guess whether it’s a male or female using it. If your company is targeting one gender over another, this is a huge new benefit!

4. Keyword Targeting—If you know what people are looking for that would bring them to your site, you’re already at an advantage. Now you just need to identify the keywords that people may be using to search for a company like yours. Using strategic keywords with your text ads means that you’re going to get more impressions, which will ultimately lead to more clicks.

5. Reporting—Unlike traditional advertising, where ROI was impossible to really measure, PPC advertising allows you to see exactly what your ROI is. The reporting tools will reveal which ads are working well, which ones need to be improved, and what keywords are most effective for you. When you also have Google Analytics on your website, the amount of information you can gain from looking at these reports helps you make smart decisions about marketing.

There’s one more place online where PPC campaigns are extremely effective—Facebook. With all the personal information users give to Facebook, the ability to target your demographic is even better than it is on any of the search engines. So, if you’re also using Facebook for your business, there’s a lot you can do with PPC ads there to drive traffic to your page and/or website.

If you’re interested in finding out how PPC advertising can help your company, contact DreamCo Design today. Our marketing consultants are available to explain our services that can help you take advantage of the power of PPC advertising.