How to Grow (And Make Money From) a Blog Using PPC

Social media has become the undisputed ruler of boosting traffic in recent years. However, this doesn’t mean you should base your entire marketing strategy around a single means of gaining revenue and conversions. There has to be another viable method in your arsenal which allows you to gain valuable conversions in a short period of time. In this case, we’re referring to Pay Per Click advertising or PPC.

Of course, SEO has long been a staple in the online marketing industry. But despite this title, it has its downsides. For one, it severely lacks in the speed department as it takes a significant amount of time for one to rise to the top of Google’s search page. And despite it’s often reliable and steady support, SEO is arguably less capable of helping a newly-launched blog to its feet. 

PPC, on the other hand, provides users with a quick route to an increase in both revenue and conversions. It has also proven time and again that it is an ideal choice for startup blogs to gain ground in their infancy. Furthermore, this type of advertising also affects your organic ranking positively, which could help you boost sales.

All of this can come true for you if every move in your PPC journey is executed with a sufficient amount of research. In this post, we’ll focus on the ways in which PPC can benefit your business and how you can pull it off. So without further ado, let’s get to know the future of advertising a little better.

The Start – Great Content

The basis of every good blog is good content. All your PPC money will go to waste if it’s used to promote lacklustre posts which derive no interest from the customer body. If attention is not paid to producing good content, then the most you will get is visits – not conversions or revenue. And the problem can get even more severe if you’re running ads for your blog posts. If your post titles or subjects aren’t enticing enough, people won’t even click on your ads. This can happen regardless of the targeting strategy you use or how good your ad copy is.

So how do you create good content in the first place? Well, the key to this phase of your PPC campaign is simply to start off with an observation of existing websites, coupled with the use of tools like BuzzSumo, SpyFu and other similar software to identify the best-performing ones. After figuring out which websites are most successful, the next step would then be to combine the formats of these high-performing posts with your own ideas. 

Alternatively, if your current content is not performing all that well, here are some ways to make it more enticing to viewers:

  • Add a higher word count to each of your posts and make every analysis in-depth
  • Create videos – they’re an excellent way of establishing a good customer retention system, as well as growing leads
  • Including relevant ads and simple images – they are bound to increase your pageviews
  • Make a post that is entirely unique, without any resemblance to any existing post online
  • Showcase interesting research results and post new data
  • Have a great website interface

Do a Sufficient Amount of Research

After executing the content optimisation part of your campaign, it’s important to make sure you’re prepped and ready to gather data. Not just some data, but all the data you can gather about existing and potential customers. This requires connecting your Google AdWords accounts to Google Analytics, and the utilisation of conversion tracking. 

After gathering the necessary information, you should then set yourself up for a period of precise audience targeting, something that is a must when it comes to effective ad creation. Here is just some of the information you have to take a look at when determining your target audience:

  • Age – a big influencer when it comes to choice of language and tone
  • Place of residence
  • Time of purchase
  • The highest converting keywords
  • Best performing products

All of these puzzle pieces should come together to help you craft good ads which are capable of attracting more customers. Your ad will now be directed precisely towards those people who have shown the most interest in your content and products. That way, you won’t get charged for empty clicks. Instead, you will be getting solid, real-life conversions that will aid you in increasing your business’ revenue.

Remarketing – the Key to Achieving Early Success with PPC 

Before giving up on a PPC campaign, you have to give remarketing a chance. Remarketing is a term for the repeat showing of an ad to people who have already seen it but haven’t clicked on it. This method will usually lead to a plethora of clicks and conversions because it induces a sense of familiarity in people, which helps to convince them to give your brand a chance. It’s especially potent if you opt to run a personalised ad.

Additionally, if you’re only just starting your blog, you have to pay attention to customer retention right from the very beginning. Remarketing doesn’t just target people who haven’t clicked on your ad, but people who have previously visited your website as well. This is an excellent way to create a stable core of customers – people who use your services and read your posts time and again.

Remarketing also goes well with calls to action – sentences written in an imperative tone. For example, sentences such as Use our coupon codes! Take advantage of the limited offer! Treat yourself! etc., are good ways to amp up your content. This type of enticing content won’t be seen as invasive, but stable, determined and trustworthy. When a customer feels like you’re talking to him directly, he will at least be interested in what you have to say.