1) The simplest reason is that it is great insurance in case your SEO rankings drop.  If you fall to number ten (or end up on the second page), it is likely that another site will get the conversion if you do not ensure your ad will appear at the top of the search results.

2) If you are a company that sells a product, it is sure that paying for PPC advertising will save you money.  If you choose not to run on your own brand terms, it is possible that the PPC ads ranking number one or two are retailers selling your product.  If they have effective ad text (like free shipping, for instance), they are going to get the sale and you will be shelling out 30% as opposed to the price per click.

3) Message control is a big one.  Many times, Google and other similar search engines will take awhile to publish your recent messages like sales or clearances and the information may not appear in the organic results immediately.  When you have PPC ads, it is easy to communicate your message and start seeing results immediately.

4) Choosing your landing page is also a big one.  Let’s say that you are having a sale on a particular item.  With your PPC ad, you can send the consumer directly to the page with the item for sale.  You cannot always choose which landing page will appear in the organic results.  If someone is enticed by a sale or a particular item but is sent to just the Homepage, it is possible that they will not click through to find the item.  They could go back to the organic results and find the item on another site.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 23rd, 2009 at 10:09 am and is filed under Blog, Google. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.