These days you can read about Pay-Per-Click strategies all over the web. There is much talk about what to do and what not to do. While certain strategies may work for some, they may not work for others. What’s important is that you take in what other’s are saying but ultimately you should test different strategies on your own to see if they work for you. Below are 5 pay-per-click myths that we hear a lot and don’t agree with.
Myth # 1: Never use broad match. This is a huge myth that you will hear various ppc’ers recommend. The thought is that broad match is too broad and doesn’t bring in qualified traffic to your site. Broad match keywords are great for generating a lot of traffic to your site. The truth is, broad match can be broad but it’s best to use it with a set of negative keywords. As long as you have a good negative keyword list to weed out unqualified traffic, broad match keywords should definitely be utilized.
Myth #2: With PPC, you can “set if and forget it”. Anyone who manages PPC campaigns knows you can’t just start a campaign and not attend to it at least once a week. If not for peace-of-mind but also to make sure everything is still up and running. I’ve had clients that had the ‘set it and forget it’ strategy only to find that after a few months none of their ads were active because somehow the URL’s got changed and their ads were going to a 404 not found page. Yikes! With the new quality score implementation in Google and Yahoo keywords are now becoming inactive if you’re bid and quality score isn’t high enough.
Myth#3: You don’t need a PPC firm – you can easily manage your account on your own. Well, I can’t speak for other PPC firms, but for the same reason that you can’t ‘set it and forget it’, if you don’t have time to manage your PPC account at least weekly (at a minimum) you should probably hire someone to manage it for you. With all technology, things are constantly changing. Like previously mentioned, keywords can become inactive due to quality score issues, ads can be declined due to editorial issues, etc. etc. Not to mention that if you’re putting money towards your PPC account you probably want to maximize your traffic and revenue potential. Having someone manage your account and make the best changes and keep up-to-date with new features can really help grow your traffic and revenue.
Myth #4: You don’t really need to do any ad text testing. Okay, if you don’t want to grow your account and get the most out of your money then don’t do any ad text testing. But if you’re smart and you want to increase your click-through rate, then you should at least be testing 2 ad texts per ad group. Testing ads will allow you to figure out which keywords, phrases and calls-to-action get the best click-through rates. By continually testing ads you can keep driving your click-through rates up and up and grow your traffic significantly over time.
Myth #5 – you don’t need to use Pay-Per-Click if you’re already ranking high in organic listings. Ranking well on the organic side is great, but also having paid ads can really help increase your branding efforts and can also increase traffic and revenue to your site. Obviously free is better than having to pay to display your ads, but it’s important to get your name in front of your audience searching the web. The average user needs 7 exposures to a brand/product before it really sinks in, so paid search can help shorten this gap. Having organic listings and paid ads is the best way to go.
Managing an effective PPC campaign is about staying up-to-date with the latest best practices and features from Google, Yahoo and MSN. It’s also about testing, testing and more testing to determine what works best for your account. PPC takes time and constant refining in order to get the most out of your money and drive qualified traffic to your site. If you have any other PPC myths you think I should add to my list, feel free to drop me a line!
