Getting ranked well on Google can take months, if not years. And, making sure your website comes up for numerous phrases is practically impossible. But pay-per-click campaigns and proper PPC Management Strategies solve these problems. In this video, Eric Spellmann explains why you may want to consider “paying for a click.” Learn why thousands of companies use pay-per-click techniques to generate quality online leads every day.
Note from Eric: Below, you will find a word-for-word transcript of this video. I provide this as an aid for the hearing-impaired and for those who might just want to read it rather than watch the video. This conversational style is not reflective of how I write. Be nice! You Pay For a Click PC Management Strategies (12:51)
Hey I am Eric Spellmann with Spellmann & Associates. And today we’re going to talk about should you pay for a click? And what I mean by that is Pay Per Click (PPC) strategies. Believe it or not, you can actually get to number 1 in Google by paying them to allow you to be there. You’ll be there in their advertising section. Now before some of you turn this off and say “I’ll never pay for a click”, listen up. Because I think you will!
First of all let’s define what is pay per click? Basically to understand it, you’ve got to know something called the SERP (Search Engine Results Page). When you do any search in Google, it creates what’s called a search engine results page where the results come up. Let me give you a good example. Let’s say you did a search on the words “Car Insurance”. This is the page that would probably come up.
Now keep in mind I live in Amarillo and based on today’s date these are the results that come up in Google. And Google kind of knows that I live in Amarillo because of the searches I’ve done from this computer. And so it shows me results that are kind of tied to Amarillo.
But heres what I want you to do. I want you to notice this section up here, in the kind of shaded area. And by the way if you need to maximize this screen, remember in the bottom-right hand corner of YouTube, you can go and make that bigger. And click that little frame and make it go full screen so you can see what I am doing more easily.
What you are looking at here are the paid results. The shaded area are paid ones. These people are paying to be there. So we have Allstate, GEICO and Progressive. And basically they are only paying Google if someone clicks on em. In other words, just by seeing this costs them nothing! Seeing these ads costs them nothing.
It’s only if someone actually clicked on it, do they pay Google anything. Now what are they paying? It could be anywhere from a dime to a dollar to 5 dollars. On average, most of the keywords I’m seeing are going for about a dollar to 2 dollars. But they are paying Google. Now you’re saying “Eric I would not pay for a click.” Yes you would. And heres why.
Let’s say you did some car insurance. And I came up to you and I said “Hey. I’ve got someone who wants to buy car insurance. And they just moved to Amarillo and they don’t know who to talk to and I would introduce you friend to my car insurance person if you give me a dollar.“
In other words I tell the car insurance salesman that I will introduce him to my friend who needs car insurance if he gives me a dollar. Now if you were that car insurance salesman would you give me a dollar? Of course you would. Because number 1 I’m not bringing you a random person off the street. I am bringing you someone who actually is looking for car insurance. And your chances of making the sale are pretty high. And so you happily trade me a dollar for the chance to make a lot more money. Well that’s what this is about. You see the only way these ads are even showing up is if someone actually types in “Car Insurance”. And so it’s a qualified prospect. And the only way they pay is if someone actually clicks on that ad and goes to their site. But once again I’m not guaranteeing that they’re going to buy car insurance. All I’m doing is bringing someone who’s looking for car insurance, to that site. So that’s what these search engine results show. So this first group is the advertised group.
But then underneath that are the organic results. These are the results that Google considers most relevant. These guys aren’t paying anything. You’ll notice that Progressive is showing up in the paid area as well as the organic area. Now I will tell you this. 60% of the clicks go to whoever is number 1 in organic. But the other 40% are divided usually between the paid areas and the further organic results down the page.
Now you’re saying “How did Allstate get to be number 1 for the paid area?” Well, believe it or not it’s based on kind of a bidding system. Whoever’s willing to pay the most per click usually gets to be number 1. Now Google modified this a little and said if we see that whoever is in placement number 2 and their ad is actually getting a lot more clicks because they wrote a better ad.
Then we will actually switch number 1 and number 2. But number 2, whos now number 1, is still paying the same what they were paying previously and number 1 whos now number 2 is still paying more! So Google is trying to encourage people to write better ads. But for the most part, he whos willing to pay the most per click usually gets to be number 1 in the pay per click arena.
The next set of results, and I couldn’t show em to you on that last page in the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) are what I call the Lucky 7. And basically, if Google discovers that what you typed in (Car Insurance) is a category unlike the white pages or yellow pages, they will actually go out and find all the companies kind of list it that way and they will pull 7 and list them in no particular order.
They will also look to see if you live near to any of them. Remember Google kind of knows that I live in Amarillo. So you probably noticed that map on the previous screen. Well that map kind of pinpoints these lucky 7. So Google tries to show businesses that are near me, but then it randomizes them. My point is this. If you suddenly see your business showing up in the Lucky 7, it doesn’t mean that you’re doing well on Google. It’s random!
Okay. You really can’t control it. And so tomorrow you may not be even on that list. But that’s what it is. So theres basically, on a Google SERP, there are basically 3 sets of data. The ads, the paid ads (which is what we’re talking about in this video), the organic listing (theres usually 10 of em that Google considers the most relevant and it costs those people nothing) and theres the lucky 7, which think of them as the phonebook listings.
So how do you choose a keyword? Basically you need to pick a strategy. You either going to go after the most popular keywords, which is most people do. In other words you’re thinking in your mind “What would my customer type in if they were looking for me and they didn’t know the name of my company?”
Well if you’re car insurance person then probably the word “Car Insurance.” Now theres an advantage to that, in that you will start showing up. But the disadvantage is you’re going to pay a lot per click because that’s extremely competitive and you’re going to be competing against Progressive and all these guys who have a lot more money than you do. So, the strategy I choose to use is called the Long Tail approach.
Basically, I don’t go after the number 1 phrase. I go after longer phrases, phrases that don’t get searched on as much. But I go after more of them. So good example. I know that people who type in “Amarillo Antique Car Insurance”, theres not as many of those people as the ones typing in “Car Insurance”.
But, I pick that phrase, I pick another and another and heres the key. Chances are it’s not as competitive therefore I’m paying less per click. If I get enough of these long tail phrases then basically I’m getting far more clicks than the guy going after “Car Insurance” for a lot less money! And that is my strategy. I implement a long tail strategy and it works great. I’m getting a lot more traffic than most of my competitors and paying a lot less! And it really works well.
Now some of you must be wondering how do I know how many people are searching on these things? Well theres a little thing called the AdWords Keyword Tool. And just go to Google and type in “AdWords Keyword Tool” and you will see the link to go straight to it. I can’t give you the link because Google keeps on changing it for some reason.
And basically when you go there, you can type in any keyword and Google will tell you how many times this is being searched on, on average in the United States and Globally. United States is listed as local. So when you see local it means United States. It will blow you away how many times some of these phrases are being searched for. And it costs you nothing, totally free. So go and research on it. It will help you find a lot of the keywords you’re looking for.
The next step is to write your ad. You need to write an ad and it needs to be a good one. People ask me all the time “Eric how to write a good ad?” It’s simple. Go look at other peoples’ ads. Type in keywords into Google and look at their ads. Trust me; some of these car insurance companies are paying a lot more money than you are, to people to write good ads.
So take a look at this first one “AAA Auto Insurance”. Notice they get the title which is a link, and then they get their web address. Then they get 2 lines of text. And one of em is “Switch & You Could Save up to $384 a Year!”. And then comes the phone number. Now what’s amazing about this ad is it’s very well written. It has the word “Switch”, which is a verb. I am a big fan of using verbs in advertising.
And then they specifically use certain numbers. Everyone wants to save $384! That’s probably on average with their customers. But then look at the next line. This is where they got it totally right. This is so clever. Online or the phone number! Now why do they put a phone number and why are you starting to see a lot of phone numbers in pay per click ads?
It’s because if I see that phone number and I call it, I didn’t click on the ad. It didn’t cost me anything, totally free! Some people might say “That’s cheating Google”. Well Google is not coming against it yet, so give it a try and go for it. I think it’s extremely clever of myself. Put your phone number in the ad because if they call it and don’t click on the ad, it didn’t cost you a penny and you still got the lead!
And finally, choose your daily budget and find a coupon. Now what do I mean by that? In Google, some people ask me “Eric I don’t want to offer car insurance in Idaho or somewhere outside of Texas. How do I control that?” Well when you’re setting up your ad you can say I only want to show this ad within 15 miles or 200 miles of this location.
So, makes it easy and you can target it. But second they say “Eric what if a tonne of people click on my ad. Is that going to cost me a tonne of money?” No. You set a daily budget. In other words you tell Google “Hey Google I don’t want to pay more than $10 a day in this campaign.”
And what happens is after you’ve got $10 in those clicks, all your ads just drop off until tomorrow. So you’ve guaranteed not to spend more. So if you did a $10 a day budget, basically you’re spending $300 a month in extremely targeted advertising that is only being seen by the people who want what you’re selling. I think it’s highly relevant. I love it.
So find a coupon. Believe it or not, Google really wants you to try this. And so they have different coupons out there for different amounts. And keep in mind, I’ve always made these videos where I’m not trying to sell like this be an infomercial but I have a bunch of $100 coupons. And so if you want to talk about your pay per click campaign, give me a call and I can give you a coupon code or give you like a 100 bucks towards trying this.
And then finally launch your campaign. Get it out there! Nothing happens until you do this. And then you can make changes as you go. I have a ton of customers who are using pay per click advertising to derive a tonne of their traffic.
And it gets them at number 1 on Google for a tonne of keywords. And you’re right, number 1 in the ad area but number1! And so if you think people don’t click on ads they do. I can show you that they do.
Well I’m Eric Spellmann with Spellmann & Associates. And as always, if you have any kind of questions give me a call or go on facebook and ask me. I will see you in cyberspace.