How to get started with PPC? by Matt Welker

Let’s get started with PPC

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising can be a highly effective way to drive traffic to your website and increase sales. However, if you're new to PPC, the whole process can be intimidating. In this blog post, we'll walk you through the steps of getting started with PPC advertising.

So what is PPC anyways?

PPC stands for pay-per-click, which is a type of online advertising where advertisers pay each time someone clicks on their ad. PPC ads are typically displayed on search engine results pages, social media platforms, or other websites. Advertisers bid on specific keywords or target audiences, and when a user searches for a related term or fits the targeting criteria, their ad is displayed. PPC advertising can be an effective way to drive traffic to a website and increase sales or leads, as advertisers only pay when someone clicks on their ad, rather than for ad impressions. Google Ads and Bing Ads are popular platforms for PPC advertising, but social media platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn also offer PPC advertising options.

Which platform should I use for PPC?

Choosing the right PPC platform depends on your business goals, target audience, and budget. Here are some of the most popular PPC platforms and their strengths:

  1. Google Ads: Google Ads is the largest and most popular PPC platform, with over 3.5 billion searches per day. It's a great choice if you want to reach a wide audience and have a significant budget. Google Ads allows you to target users based on their search terms, location, device, and more.

  2. Facebook Ads: Facebook Ads is a popular choice for businesses looking to target specific demographics and interests. Facebook allows you to target users based on age, gender, location, interests, behaviors, and more. It's a good option for businesses with a visual product, as it supports image and video ads.

  3. LinkedIn Ads: LinkedIn Ads is a great platform for B2B businesses looking to reach professionals and decision-makers. It allows you to target users based on job title, industry, company size, and more. LinkedIn Ads supports both text and sponsored content ads.

  4. Bing Ads: Bing Ads is Microsoft's search engine advertising platform and a good alternative to Google Ads. It has a lower cost per click (CPC) than Google Ads and can be a good option for businesses with a smaller budget. Bing Ads allows you to target users based on search terms, location, device, and more.

  5. Twitter Ads: Twitter Ads is a good choice if you want to promote your brand or product in real-time. It allows you to target users based on keywords, interests, behaviors, and more. Twitter supports both text and video ads.

Ultimately, the platform you choose will depend on your business goals and target audience. You may also want to consider the cost per click and the platform's user base before making a decision. It's a good idea to test multiple platforms to see which one works best for your business.

How do I start a PPC campaign?

Step 1: Define your goals Before you begin your PPC campaign, you need to have a clear understanding of your goals. Are you looking to increase traffic to your website? Boost sales? Generate leads? Knowing what you want to achieve will help you create a targeted PPC campaign that delivers results.

Step 2: Choose your platform The next step is to choose a platform for your PPC advertising. There are several options available, including Google Ads, Bing Ads, Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads, and more. Each platform has its own strengths and weaknesses, so choose one that best aligns with your goals and target audience.

Step 3: Do your keyword research Keywords are the foundation of any successful PPC campaign. Start by brainstorming a list of keywords that are relevant to your business and industry. You can also use keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner to discover new keywords and see how competitive they are.

Step 4: Create your ad copy Your ad copy is what will convince potential customers to click on your ad and visit your website. Make sure your ad copy is clear, concise, and highlights the benefits of your product or service. Be sure to include your target keywords in your ad copy for better relevancy and visibility.

Step 5: Set your budget and bid PPC advertising is a pay-per-click model, which means you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. You'll need to set a daily budget for your campaign and bid on your target keywords. Your bid is the amount you're willing to pay for each click, and it will determine your ad's placement in the search results.

Step 6: Launch your campaign and monitor performance Once you've set up your campaign, it's time to launch it and start monitoring its performance. Keep a close eye on your ad's click-through rate (CTR), conversion rate, and cost per click (CPC). Use this data to optimize your campaign and make adjustments as needed to improve performance.

Step 7: Continuously optimizing and refining your campaign PPC advertising is an ongoing process, and it requires continuous optimization and refinement to achieve optimal results. Use the data from your campaign to make data-driven decisions and test different ad copy, keywords, and targeting options to improve performance over time.

Getting started with PPC advertising can seem overwhelming, but by following these steps and taking a data-driven approach, you can create a successful campaign that drives traffic, leads, and sales to your website. Remember to define your goals, choose the right platform, do your keyword research, create compelling ad copy, set your budget and bid, monitor performance, and continuously optimize and refine your campaign. Good luck!

But does PPC work?

Yes, PPC can be a highly effective marketing strategy if implemented correctly. It's important to note that the success of your PPC campaigns depends on several factors, including the quality of your ads, the targeting of your audience, and the competitiveness of your industry. It's important to work with a knowledgeable and experienced PPC specialist to maximize the effectiveness of your campaigns.

RelyOn is run by experts with over 20+ years of digital marketing experience. We create tailored PPC campaigns that help business grow their online presence, as well as, grow their bottom line. Contact RelyOn today for your free consultation!

How To Attain Social Media Success For Your Startup by Thomas Berry

by Dianna Simmons

Modern startups all have one major hurdle ahead of themselves. 

This is the fact that today’s digital marketplace, especially on social media, is already saturated with brands vying for consumer attention. 

Therefore, if you want to attain social media success, you’ll need to employ a few tactics to help your brand stand out. 

Below, we review some of the best tips, tricks, strategies, and tactics for effectively promoting your new startup on social media. 

The Importance Of Social Media For Startups

In the past, handing out customized business cards was one of the best ways to spread the word and promote your new business. 

Today, however, things have changed, and being actively engaged on social media is one of the best ways to promote your brand online. 

On Facebook alone, there are roughly 2.8 billion active monthly users.

When you add this figure to all other social platforms, including Instagram, Twitter, Linked In, TikTok, etc., you can easily see why social media is one of the best ways to reach an ever-growing audience for your new startup. 

Being Active And Engaged

All that said, it’s not enough to create a social media account and hope that people will start following your new business. 

Instead, your new startup must get active by posting regularly, responding to comments and mentions, and running other types of promotions on social media. 

Rather than being seen as a stone-faced social media profile, being active allows your followers and potential customers to see your new business a being more human and relatable. 

That’s why, today, you’ll see the world’s biggest brands like Nike and Coca-Cola active on social media each day of the week! 

Running Games And Promotions

Whether you sell physical products or digital services, one excellent method for getting people engaged with your brand is to run games and promotions regularly. 

Whether you’re offering a 10% discount or running a draw, these types of events are great at getting people to pay attention and notice your brand. 

Furthermore, loss aversion is a genuine psychological factor when it comes to consumer psychology. And using it appropriately is practically guaranteed to help increase your consumer engagement levels!

Therefore, it’s best to run games and promotions on a limited-time-only basis, which will make your followers feel like they’re missing out if they don’t act now and interact with your posts or promotions. 

Posting Regularly And Consistently

Posting on social media is great! 

But if you want to attain social media success, you need to post regularly and consistently, which allows your followers to know when they can expect new content from you. 

Therefore, I highly recommend creating a social media calendar that you can fill in according to local, upcoming events, holidays, or any other industry-specific events that might be important. 

Whether you choose to post once per day, once per week, or once per month, consistency is critical. 

Not only in terms of your posting schedule, but consistency is also crucial to your branding, colors, fonts, imagery, etc. 

Essentially, the more effort you put into your social media branding and posting regularity, the more you should get back in terms of engagement and brand interaction! 

Social Media Success in 2021

Whether you’re running a small business startup or a significant, highly innovative tech startup, social media is single-handedly your best bet for reaching a global online audience. 

However, to be successful, you’ll need to have the proper branding, be active and engaged, run games and promotions, and eventually, you’ll have followers lined up out the door waiting to get in touch with your new brand! 

Maximizing The Reach Of Your Next Blog Post by Thomas Berry

by Louise Cole

What blogger hasn't dreamed of having their blog posts go viral, being read, liked, shared by millions of people all around the world? 

However, the truth is that reality is often much different than this. 

Most people launch a blog, write a few posts, and then face utter disappointment when the only people who like or share their content is their mother. 

If this sounds like you, keep reading, and we'll go over a few simple yet highly effective methods for maximizing the reach of your next blog post for free! 

Write Catchy Headlines

Most people don't read past the headline when they see a blog post online. 

If the headline doesn't immediately grab their attention, they'll simply scroll past it and look for other, more exciting things to read. 

Therefore, one of the best and most effective ways to maximize the reach of your blog posts is to write intriguing, catchy headlines that leave the reader dying to learn more. 

Offer Value

Another critical tactic to increase the reach of your posts is to lead with value before anything else. 

There are hardly any topics or ideas that haven't been discussed and shared online in today's digital marketplace, meaning that if you're writing the same type of blogs that your viewers have seen a thousand times before, they're not likely to go far. 

So rather than writing blogs simply for the sake of doing so, try to offer value to your readers by solving their problems and answering their most pressing questions. 

When you do this, not only do you solve searcher intent, but you also make your blog or brand stand out as a trusted expert on the given subject matter. 

Optimize Your Posts

There's nothing more important in terms of organic reach than to make sure that your blog posts are optimized for keywords that your potential readers are already searching for. 

So let's say that you own a blog about all sorts of sports. 

In this case, one idea would be to write blog posts that answer questions like, "What are the best shoes for soccer?" or "Can I wear running shoes to play gold?"

These are questions that people interested in sports might be asking online. 

Therefore, by optimizing your content for keywords like these that solve simple problems and provide valuable answers, your blogs will be much more likely to show up in the search engine results pages when an internet user types in such queries. 

Promote On Social Media

It's great to type out a few thousand words and hit the publish button. 

But unless you've optimized for a keyword that has a high search volume and virtually no competition, it's going to take a while before people start finding your post in the search engines.

Therefore, it's highly recommended that you follow up any content you publish by promoting it on social media, which is free unless you opt to do PPC advertising. 

Platforms like Facebook have millions of active followers every day, which means that posting on these platforms is one of the best ways to get your content in front of the right people. 

Just make sure that your blogs and your social accounts have some sort of branding on them, whether it be a company logo, website address, or simply your name, which will help people remember where the post came from and who you are! 

Make It Memorable & Maximize Your Posts' Reach

Whether you blog about fishing, sports, marketing, or small business, it takes more than hitting that publish button to get your content in front of the right people. 

But by writing catchy headlines, offering value, optimizing your posts, and promoting your posts on social media, you'll be well on your way to having your posts seen by as many people as possible!

Let’s Make Ads Great Again by Thomas Berry

Ad agencies suck! They take advantage of the fact that they understand this mythical beast called digital advertising and you don't. The truth they don't want me to tell you; the trust they don't want you to know is that they don't have anything power without you! They need you to exit. You, the business owner, have the power.

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