™Marketing Magazine Issue 9 | Page 24

PAY-PER-CLICK PPC...Easy As 1,2,3? TIPS AND TRICKS TO STARTING YOUR PAY-PER-CLICK JOURNEY BY: JESSICA EMBREE How business is done has changed, but many have not adapted their business accordingly. Trade shows and face-to-face meetings are restricted and are now going virtual. With this “new normal,” your inbound sales strategy needs to pivot toward a different direction. In my last article, “Pandemic Marketing,” I challenged you to pivot and try Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising. The problem? PPC can be overwhelming and daunting if you don’t know where to start. Which is why we have broken this process down into three steps that will get you started on your PPC journey. STEP 1: COMPETITIVE & KEYWORD ANALYSIS Before creating a PPC ad on Google, you want to ask yourself and understand the following question: How are customers finding my competitors, and what are they searching for to find them? There are a few ways you can get this information. You can scour social media and websites to see what your competitors are doing online to reach their audience. And you can use SEMrush.com. SEMrush is a tool your business can use to learn how your competitors perform compared to your business. It can give you insights such as traffic analytics, keyword research, site audits, and more. We use this tool at Tulip Media to get an understanding of our Client-Partners’ businesses and what opportunities they may be able to leverage when we build their Google PPC campaigns for them. Once you have done a competitor analysis and you start to see what customers are searching for, this is when you can use Google Keyword Planner to start to get an understanding of what keywords you can use in your PPC ads to get the traffic you desire. Your PPC ads are like a car and the keywords that you use are your fuel. When looking at Google Keyword Planner and choosing keywords, the main things to pay attention to are the following: • your location • average monthly searches – the higher the better • competition – you want low or medium 24 | TULIPMEDIAGROUP.COM