I love Google, who doesn’t? I have many friends who make a lot of money as PPC managers and agencies and I see the value of their work. They bring medium and big businesses a lot of profit, but let’s face it. PPC isn’t cheap!
It’s very expensive!
For one home insurance client I was shocked to learn the cost was £42 per click for his chosen keyword. For another the cost was considerable low at £3 a click for keywords relating to corsets but there’s no escaping the fact that the brand is penalised financially for popularity.
The more that click, the more it costs. There’s no guarantee of a conversion.(I’m well aware you can choose to pay per conversion too). Money can leak from a business very quickly if the campaign isn’t in the safest of hands. Of course, this isn’t my way to start a business, as my last post on “How I Started a Business with £10” shows.
What’s the Alternative to a PPC Agency?
If your website has good content, if it has inbound links, if it has great information and if it’s updated regularly, you should rank quite easily. It’s a simple formula for success, the best websites win.
Backlinks help tremendously BUT if you have great content, people will want to link to your site and so the circle continues. Of course, you can help it along by building good, genuine relationships with other sites for backlinks.
Become an Authority in Your Industry
The best way to do this, I have found, is by carving a name out for yourself as an authority in your industry. This starts with a blog on your own site. It continues with some well meaning advice on forums, and social media and it expands when you write a guest post for another site.
Sites will want to feature your opinion and of course they’ll link to your site for the privilege, this is how you rank organically on Google. This is how you avoid paying for those clicks.
Unless there’s a dramatic update, nothing will beat organic SEM. Nothing. People actually skip the ads when looking for content through search as they feel they won’t be 100% relevant as they’ve paid to be there. If you can rank organically, you can enjoy solid leads daily through Google along with a steady income.
Patience is a Virtue but it Doesn’t Bring the Honey Home
It does take time to rank though, and to build those relationships. Many businesses do use PPC while they wait for their organic rankings to rise. Within months, one overtakes the other and the spend on PPC decreases as your website rises.
If you do choose this route, please do not be fooled by the absurd, con artists that call themselves PPC agencies online. Choose a reputable PPC Agency with a portfolio, a client list and a history of making a profit.
