Two questions to ask yourself before you start a Google Adwords or any pay-per-click(PPC) advertising campaign.
Do I have the money?
If your ad budget is low it will keep you out the keyword auction. For example, if you want to spend $1,000 per 30 days and AdWords says your keywords and phrases require a maximum cost per click(cpc) of $6.50 to show up on top, do not expect sales as your campaign will only show minimal keywords with little or no conversion. Low budgets and unreasonable expectations are a recipe for ROI disaster. Having your budget high enough to be competitive for those keywords among the competition is key.
Adwords or any pay-per-click(PPC) advertising campaign is not a get rich quick scheme! Expect 60 to 90 days or even longer for a campaign to get in full gear and sometimes the truth is that you may never get the ROI you expected. Generally conversion rates are 2% for on-line retail. If you’re expecting a higher conversion rate, you’re either dreaming or desperate!
Am I ready?
If you business is broken, don’t expect Google to solve all of your businesses woes. You should take a good hard look at your business and ask yourself, Does my website look professional and secure? Are my products and/or services competitively priced? Having over priced products and/or services is generally where most on-line businesses have problems. Everything is online and everything is price driven. Also, review your current organic conversion rate, this can add great insight on how well you are doing.
PPC advertising can grow your business! However, PPC is only one of the many ways to market your business.
