Compete with Google on the PPC Landscape

Ask any industry insider how Google made its billions and they will tell you that the engine that drove Google to its vault of riches was not its search engine since using it is free but the pay-per-click services Google commenced offering in the early 2000s. Google PPC has two avatars—AdWords and AdSense and although both platforms have gone through their respective teething cycles, the models have matured so incredibly well that Google will never have to apply for a credit line from any banking institution even when the global economy goes south the next time.

Learning from Success

Strangely, Google’s success has not been replicated with matching success by the other major search engines such as Yahoo, Ask and Bing. This has to do more with the quality of the search experience from a visitor’s perspective than it does with search technology. Let us forget for a moment that Google is a search engine and apply the general parameters of a flourishing website on Google. Examine Google closely and you will notice that it is top quality and relevant content all the way. Were it not for the highly impressive quality of content as manifested in its search engine results, Google wouldn’t have been numero uno with about 70% of market share and growing in leaps and bounds annually. We are, in essence, suggesting in this short primer that you too can emulate Google’s success albeit at a micro level not by setting up your own search engine but by building a quality content website and implementing your own pay-per-click solution. Here are a few pointers to set you thinking. Remember however, that this is not an easy task and can emerge initially as a serious uphill battle. But then, if it were that easy, wouldn’t everyone be doing it?

Build the next Digital Mouse Trap that Works

Chances are that you already have a website that pays the bills. Wouldn’t it be nice if you had another website that stashed the cash? The first thing to do is to identify a hot niche which generates humungous search volumes and moderate competition. Build a content-based website around this niche using a social networking model complete with forums, chat, personal profiles, video, audio and photo file sharing—the works.

The key, however, is to insure that the number of authoritative content pages developed by knowledgeable and experienced content developers whom you will have to hire is double the number of your social media and social networking pages. It goes without saying that the website needs to be built on sound principles of SEO so that you can achieve top rankings on the major search engines in months and not in years. You will also need to budget a few dollars for various SEM initiatives.

Welcoming Online Traffic

Once the traffic begins to arrive on your content rich social media website, it is time to go PPC using the internal route. There are dozens of good software applications available to integrate your own PPC on the website. They are called PPC scripts and although it is unfair to recommend one over the other, we believe that a few hours of research on your part will bring in good results. Be sure to read as many reviews and user evaluations as you can before you sign the dotted line. PPC scripts work exactly the way they are supposed to—when visitors click on a PPC text or banner advertisement on your website, they are transported to the advertiser’s landing page and you get to deduct a small fee from the funds the advertiser has deposited with you in advance. You get to keep the entire deposit. There is no third party sharing with a network or an intermediary website. After all, it is your PPC service!

The PPC script Hyperseek (www.hyperseek.com) for instance, will even activate several fraud detection heuristics like Google to make sure that advertisers who have chosen to advertise on your content website receive full value for their PPC investment. The entire operation is meant to be fully transparent and you will always be able to reward your advertisers with genuine business.

Conclusion

Self-proclaimed PPC status is not easy to attain and will take you several months to implement. However, if you have the time and the patience to try it out, the effort just might be worth the rewards.