Copywriting tip – What happens when the PPC budget runs out?

By far the easiest way to get on the first page of Google is to pay for a sponsored results listing. Choose your keyword, set a budget and watch with delight as your website pops up at the top of matching searches. Amazing!

Picture of some search engines

PPC search results are great. Until you run out of money.

Your site will continue to appear in the sponsored search results section at the top of the page and your account will be debited the pennies or pounds quoted for your chosen keyword. Until you hit your budget limit. When you run out of PPC funds, your sponsored links immediately disappear, which is a problem if your site does not have some great search engine optimised (SEO) content to rely on.

Great content is what helps your website climb up the Google rankings “organically” (your hard work is recognised by Google and rewarded with a good ranking). Organic results, displayed in large text on the left of the search results page, are harder to achieve, but they also last a little longer than your PPC budget. And they are free.

Many businesses rely on PPC to keep their website at the top of Google’s rankings, which is great if you have an unlimited online marketing budget. But if you have to be a bit more careful with your cash, a paid search listing will only yield positive results for a short while. If you fail to set aside some of your budget for creating great content, as soon as the PPC money is gone, your site will disappear into the backwaters of page 2 or worse.

Search engine marketing (SEM) is a balance between PPC and SEO to ensure that you have “organic” results to back up your paid ads. Most experts now advocate using both to try and appear twice on the first page of Google, lending your website extra credibility, particularly as customers are beginning to realise that paid search listings are no indicator of quality.

But if the content on your website is poor, your organic search results will also be poor. Worse still, any money spent on AdWords and PPC could be wasted as customers click through and are disappointed by what they find. They don’t know that every click costs you, and they don’t really care either. Great content is essential for good organic search results listings and for imparting useful information to would-be customers.

The good news is that I can help you produce the blog posts and articles your website needs to earn organic results placement. Drop me a line to find out more about my copywriting services and how they could actually stretch your PPC budget for better sales and results.

 

Image licensed under Creative Commons © Danard Vicente