Search Engine Advertising: How Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Drives Sales

Search engine ads, also known as pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, can be a powerful tool for driving business online, regardless of the size of your company, if you’re looking to increase visibility and drive more traffic to a website. Here are a few key benefits of using search engine ads:

Quick results: Unlike traditional SEO efforts, which can take weeks or even months to show results, search engine ads can start driving traffic to your site almost immediately. This makes them an ideal option for businesses looking to quickly boost visibility and generate leads.
Targeted audience: With search engine ads, you can target specific keywords and demographics, ensuring that your ads are seen by the people most likely to be interested in your products or services. This can help increase the chances of generating conversions and sales.
Cost-effective: Search engine ads are often less expensive than traditional forms of advertising, such as TV or print ads. You only pay when someone clicks on your ad, so you’re not wasting money on impressions that don’t result in any action.
Measurable: Search engine ads come with detailed analytics, so you can track the performance of your campaigns, identify which keywords and ad groups are performing well, and make adjustments to improve reach and conversion.
Local targeting: You can target your ads to a specific geographical area, which is particularly helpful for small businesses looking to attract customers within a certain radius.
Flexibility: With search engine ads, you can make changes to your campaigns at any time, and you can pause or stop your ads whenever you want. This flexibility allows you to adjust your advertising strategy as needed and make the most of your budget.

These are a few of the important benefits of search engine advertising. But the real question remains…

How do I, as a company, get the most of search engine advertising so that prospects who visit my website are likely to convert?

ℹ Important: How do audiences search for anything online?

If someone is searching for something online – a product, service or answer – they tend to go about it with a few general formulas that allow them to find what they are looking for. Search engines are commonly fed terms and phrases like:

the name of the product or service
keywords related to the product or service
the type of product or service (such as “reviews,” “prices,” “compare,” etc.)
the name of the brand or manufacturer
location-based terms (such as “near me” or the name of a city or region)
modifier terms (such as “best,” “cheap,” “top,” “quality,” etc.)
generic terms (such as “buy,” “shop,” “find,” etc.)

Instead of relying on what you can think of and how YOU might search for your site, think in terms of how your audience might look for your pages. A user-oriented approach in PPC is among the most helpful ways to ensure you’re finding your target customers who are most likely to convert and less likely to run up your advertising spend without tangible results to justify campaigns.

Examples of common searches people use online

Methods are helpful, but examples of common searches are valuable to get a better picture of exactly how the searches are made. Here is a list of formula searches accompanied by examples someone would make online in a search engine:

“buy [product name]” (e.g. “buy iPhone 12”)
“best [product name] [modifier]” (e.g. “best running shoes for flat feet”)
“compare [product name] [product name]” (e.g. “compare Samsung Galaxy S20 vs iPhone 12”)
“find [product name] [location]” (e.g. “find a plumber in San Francisco”)
“reviews [product name]” (e.g. “reviews for the Roomba i7+”)
“cheap [product name]” (e.g. “cheap gaming laptops”)
“top [product name] [modifier]” (e.g. “top rated laptops for students”)
“discount [product name]” (e.g. “discount on MacBook Pro “)
“near me [product name]” (e.g. “best Chinese restaurants near me”)
“price of [product name]” (e.g. “price of Tesla Model 3”)
“brand [product name]” (e.g. “Brand Samsung TV”)
“coupons [product name]” (e.g. “coupons for Subway sandwiches”)

This is not an exhaustive list and there are way, way more variations to consider in the process. In the event you have issues with inspiration as to how a user might search, check out this great tool made by Elias Dabbas for generating SEM keywords or phrases that can help you. The advertools library is available in command line as a python package as well.

Where else can you use Search Engine Advertising?

One might read search engine advertising and immediately think of Google although there are several other places one could advertise in a search engine.

A few other places that have search engine advertising that could help move your product, services or draw more traffic are:

Amazon: Amazon is one of the largest e-commerce platforms in the world and people often use it to search for products. The search method on Amazon is quite similar to Google search, where people can enter keywords or phrases to find products, but it also allows users to filter by category, brand, price, and customer rating.
YouTube: YouTube is the world’s largest video sharing platform, and many people use it to search for videos related to products and services as well as gathering information (example: learning about a topic). The search method on YouTube is based on keywords and tags, and it also allows users to filter by channel, date, and relevance.
Instagram: Instagram is a social media platform that allows users to search for accounts, hashtags, and locations. The search method on Instagram is based on keywords and hashtags, and it also allows users to filter by location, account, and recent posts.
Yelp: Yelp is a platform that allows users to search for businesses and services based on location, category and reviews. The search method on Yelp is based on keywords, location and filter by rating, price and type of business.
Facebook: Facebook is a social media platform that allows users to search for pages, groups, and events. The search method on Facebook is based on keywords and location, and it also allows users to filter by relevance, popularity, and category.

Finding your search engines to advertise on 🔎

Depending on what you offer, different search engines would likely be a higher priority on which to market. Here are a few things to consider depending on whether you’re offering a product, a service or a blog/subscription.

Product Search

Amazon: Amazon is one of the largest e-commerce platforms in the world, and it is a great place to search for products. Consider offering your products here as well.
Google Shopping: Google Shopping is a service provided by Google that allows users to search for products, compare prices, and view product details.

Service Search

Google: Google is one of the most widely used search engines in the world. Users can enter keywords or phrases related to the service they are interested in and filter by location, rating and type of service.
Yelp: Yelp is a platform that allows users to search for businesses and services based on location, category and reviews. It’s a great way to find local services.

Google: Google is a great place to search for blogs and subscriptions.
Blog search engines: Blog search engines like Technorati, IceRocket, and Google Blog Search allow users to search for blogs by topic, author, or keyword.