Lead Generation

There are a number of ways to generate traffic and visitors to your website, both online and offline. For example you might consider offline marketing strategies such as direct mail, contests, and general advertising, to name a few.

Online lead generation strategies are focused on activities occurring on the internet that drive people directly to your website. These can include paid search, social media, blogging and more.

An effective way to generate website traffic is to utilize the extensive paid keyword ads programs of search engines.  With paid keyword search (also known as pay-per-click or PPC), a link to your website can appear almost instantly within the search engine "sponsored search" areas.

Benefits of Paid Search

Paid search using keywords lets you customize your message depending on the type of keyword you use to drive traffic to your site. Depending on the product or service you sell, customers may click on different keywords for different reasons. For example, an online bookstore sells thousands of books within hundreds of genres. Customers who love detective stories may click on "Mystery Novels" as a keyword phrase; fans of romance novels would select "Romance Novels". Both keyword phrases take customers to the same store but each keyword phrase is clicked by a different individual looking for something very specific. With keyword ads, you can easily target your "niche" customers.

Challenges of Paid Search

Once an ad is placed on a search engine, it is necessary to keep track of that ad's ability to drive qualified traffic (people who are likely to purchase from you) to your site. The goal of a good paid search marketing program is to drive the most qualified traffic to your site for the least amount of cost. This is a process that is refined continuously. An ad that works well today may not generate as much traffic tomorrow. Why is this? There are many reasons:

• Normal business cycle adjustments
• Seasonality (say you're selling swimsuits, they sell better in the spring and not so well in the winter)
• Competitive landscape changes
• Market trends in general

Keyword or Phrase Costs

Keywords are bought on a per-click basis. So, if your ad appears to 100 people in a search engine but only 10 people click on your ad, you only pay for the 10 clicks. The cost of a keyword depends on its popularity, region where it is used, and how high up in the search engines results page (SERP) you want it to appear. They can run from $.05 cents per click to more than $10! Of course, the more you pay, the better your results - but good results can be obtained by paying very little on quality targeted keywords. A paid keyword search program can be customized to fit your budget.

Green Owl Consulting can help you create a Paid Search strategy within your budget that will get you the results you’re looking for. Contact us for more information about Paid Search services.