Many PDCA-members have found a way to significantly increase the amount of business they get from the Web: Pay-Per-Click marketing. In fact, for some, Pay-Per-Click marketing (or PPC) is a key to staying competitive in today’s marketplace.

PPC marketing is an auction style advertising method of paying for placement on the major search engines like Google, Yahoo!, MSN, AOL and Ask.com.

With PPC, you as the advertiser have the ability to be guaranteed exposure on any search engine results page on the Internet rather than leaving it to pure chance. With PPC you purchase the right to have your site’s name and brief ad message appear as a link alongside, above or on the same page as regular search returns.

There are many reasons why PPC marketing delivers value:

1.) You only pay if a user clicks on your link. It costs nothing to be displayed on the results page. As a result, this doubles as a branding opportunity.

2.) It is almost always less expensive to use PPC rather than search engine optimization, which is a different form of search engine marketing. And, unlike SEO, you get instant results instead of months later.

3.) You can track what you are spending, turn the program on and off, and you can modify the campaign instantly based on performance. Can you think of any other advertising program that can make that claim?

Set a budget

Budget depends on the size of your market and the level of search engine dominance you want to achieve. For most painting and decorating contractors $500 per month is a good baseline starting point. But if you are in a Top 20 market, or want to see a fast spike in new lead volume you should expect to invest more.

For more strategic budgeting, consider how much a customer is worth to your bottom line and how much new business you would like. Multiply those two numbers together and then take 10%- 30% of that number to determine a sensible investment in marketing for your business’ future. Budget that amount over a 3-6 month period to get started.

PPC is almost always more cost effective than yellow pages, newspaper, radio, TV, billboards and direct mail. Some PPC services can even track your spending directly back to the number of new business phone calls and emails you receive. Ever wished the yellow pages could give you that kind of return on investment data?

Optimize, optimize, optimize

Since PPC is based on the search terms that your potential clients are likely to use, identify terms that describe your business, its services and your local service area. Make a list of all those terms and prioritize them based on their relevance to you.

For instance, a PDCA-member in Bethesda, Maryland might list the following as his or her search terms:

Painting contractor, Painting contractors, decorating service, commercial paint services, residential wallpaper service

And then they would consider how search engines users might describe his service area. Think of everywhere you serve – neighborhoods, cities, suburbs, counties. That list might be:

Parkwood, Cabin John, Bethesda, Rockville, Silver Spring, Gaithersburg, Montgomery County, Washington DC

With PPC, you’ll bid on your chosen keywords or combinations of keywords. Remember that each variation requires a unique bid. For example,

Bethesda Maryland Painting contractor is different from

Bethesda MD Painting contractor which is different from

Bethesda Painting contractor which is different from

Painting Contractor

As you see from this example, you will have some variables to sort through as you determine what the right keywords are for you. While you might have a clear idea of how you would describe your business and its service area, the public might have another.

During the ongoing campaign management of your PPC program you should always evaluate which keywords pull the best results. Invest more money in the most successful keywords while reducing the investment in under-performing keywords.

Can I do it myself?

Yes. PPC programs are accessible to all. The major players like Google and Yahoo! have done a fairly good job of providing information, glossaries and step-by-step instructions to guide you through the process. Google’s do-it-yourself tool, called AdWords, even has a Keyword Tool to simplify the selection process. It suggests useful keyword variations and related terms.

Some businesses want the additional and consistent web traffic that PPC can bring but don’t have the time and expertise to set up and manage the program, much less track and measure it properly. If your time is tight, consider seeking help from your web­site provider or a web marketing firm recom­mended by your professional association or your peers in the industry.

Conclusion

To get the most from your website in 2008, consider Pay-Per-Click marketing. It is a proven and predictable tool to get in front of the many customers who use the web every day to find local businesses. PPC allows you to jump start your web marketing strategy, and beat your competition to front page of Google, Yahoo! and the like. Don’t delay just because your budget is small or you are new to this approach – it already works for some PDCA members and could work for you too.

Griffin Davis and Matt Bechtel

Griffin Davis and Matt Bechtel are Website and Internet Marketing Experts for Market Hardware, Inc., the leader in Web services for painting and decorating professionals. Market Hardware offers special discounts to PDCA members. To learn more about how search engines work, or how PPC Marketing can help grow your business, visit their website, www.markethardware.com/ppc. Or, to ask any Web marketing question, email matt@markethardware.com.