you may ask, search engine optimization for pay per click?

The short answer is “Yes”. 

Knowing the code factors below can return a greater ROI and lower your cost per acquisition. 

Just why “on page code” matters is quite simple:  Spiders.  These spiders or bots are complex software programs that index your page and then determine what the page is about.  The code is how the spiders understand what is on the page and understand its content.

To completely understand why on page code is so important, we must first realize PPC and SEM have changed.  In the past, ranking for PPC advertisers was dependant on the bid.  The more you were willing to pay, the better you ranked.

Recent search engine algorithm changes have eliminated this model completely and now managing Pay per Click landing pages is more like SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and less like an auction bid process.  Rank is now just as much a factor of relevancy (decided by the engine) as it is spending money on a bid.  Part of the equation is now convincing the search engine that your page is relevant to that search.

To understand why the days of straight bidding are gone, we need to first look at the focus of a search engine.  The focus of a Search Engine is to deliver to most RELEVANT results to a user for a given search term.  For years, those of us in the SEO field have known this, and done our best to understand what the Search Engines were looking for when deciding how to rank Organic results.  We then created our web sites and on page code to please the search engines to ensure our chosen keyword/pages rank.

However, this was not necessarily the case in the Pay per Click advertising. The “best practices” of internet marketing dictates that you only continue to pay for keywords that convert.   While the straight bid method did help focus Internet Marketers to some degree, it had its drawbacks.  The problem was that you could easily use one landing page URL and 100,000’s of keywords to drive un-related traffic to a site in the hopes that the copy on the landing page would convert a customer.  Many users were hesitant to click on PPC ads since the landing pages may or may not be relevant for what the consumer was looking for.  For the search engines, better relevance meant users were more likely to trust the site.  The more users search and click, the more revenue the search engines can collect.  The way search engines keep a user happy is to display the most relevant results for a user search in both organic and PPC returned results.

We now factor in the Pay per Click Algorithm.  The bid is still part of the algorithm, and one of the factors to ranking your Pay per Click page.  Where it was once a major factor, it is now only one of many deciding rank.  With the recent changes, positioning the on page code is paramount to success in ranking.  If your page lacks the crucial code aspect that the major search engines are looking in determining your ranking, then prepare to spend 10 to 20 times more than you need to.  Money (as a bid), Code Factors, Creative and Click Thru Rates are the key factors to communicating with the Spiders to relay relevance.

Even in SEO, those of us outside of the search engines do not know exactly know the ranking algorithm.  It is reported there are over 100 factors, but very few people know the details, and those who do are not sharing this information.  But the 80/20 rule holds true even in SEO, and there are a significant handful of factors that are critical.  The same seems to be true for ranking with PPC.  You don’t have to do every factor perfect, just better than your competition.  Create PPC landing pages with these code factors in mind, and you will not have to bid as much to make up for the lacking code factors.

Understanding that can mean a greater ROI for your business.

Questions? Call us at 978-298-1525, or e-mail SalesSMS@idearc.com.