Locations in
St. Louis, MO
Chicago, IL
Kansas City, KS
Denver, CO

For General
Phone: (877) 224-7543
Fax: (314) 394-1370
Email: [email protected]

For Support
Help Desk: (314) 403-1225
Email: [email protected]

"I wanted to take this time to thank Forward Slash Technology for the hard work and dedication to our Police Department's computer network...."
Read More

"Our financial institution made a switch over to Forward Slash Technology approximately one year ago. Since our conversion to their services...."
Read More

Follow Our IT Company Twitter Page Like Our IT Company Facebook Page Learn About Our IT Company on LinkedIn

Search Engine Marketing and PPC - St. Louis

If you are spending thousands on your pay per click, but you don't feel like you are getting representative results, some of the problems may be difficult to determine. The terms are hazy at best, and Google, ever protective of their secrets, isn't exactly forthcoming with information about how their precise bids are reached. So we'll lend you our expertise; here are some essential things to know before you spend money on pay per click.

  • Search Network - The Search Network is specific to Google and related searches. When people think of 'Google Pay Per Click' the Search Network is what they are usually thinking of. Accessing the PPC Search Network places your ad on the search pages of Google.
  • Display Network - Display network is any number of Web sites throughout the web that display Google Ads. These sites may or may not have anything to do with your product or service ' they simply receive perks for displaying Google Ads on their sites. Unless you are trying to brand a large corporation name with visual branding ' the display network is a waste of time and money. While you may receive thousands of dollars worth of clicks, they are usually poor leads, and they drag down your click through rate (despite having a high number of clicks), which drags down your Cost per Impression ' which forces your bid to increase.
  • Branded Keywords - In most cases, paying for your name as a keyword is kind of silly. You will get some people who insist that PPC on your name will give you further branding, or that it will outfox competitors who show up for your name. You also have to realize that these are the people that are profiting from your PPC campaign. If I go to Google and type in 'America's Center,' chances are, America's Center is what they are looking for. Even if Joe Bob's Center appears on the PPC directly above America's Center which is only in the organic results, people will still click on your link. However, put America's Center in the PPC in addition to the organic listing, and plenty of people that would have clicked on your organic listing will simply click on your PPC ad ' charging you ' and sending a percentage straight to your PPC optimizer.
  • CPC, CTR, CPM, QS ' Cost Per Click, Click Thru Rate, Cost Per Impression, Quality Score. These terms are essential to understanding how your campaign is performing.
    • Cost per Click (CPC) shows you what you are actually spending per click
    • Click Through Rate (CTR) shows you how many times your ad is clicked on versus viewed
    • Cost Per Impression (CPM) shows how much money you spend in clicks per thousand impressions that your ad receives.
    • Quality Score (QS) indicates the overall effectiveness of your ad, based on keyword use, ad writing, quality of the landing page, and more.
  • Bidding - How does Google determine your bid? Aside from what many will tell you, you are not simply bidding on a space against everyone else. You are also bidding against your own value to Google. To formulate how much money you have to bid for the top page, Google takes into account your quality score, your click through rate, and multiply them by your bid. We don't know the results they look for on any particular word, but obviously, the higher the number, the higher the result. What that means is, you:
  1. Have to compensate for low quality scores and click through rates with high bids. Therefore, the better the ad, the higher your click through rate and your quality score, the lower your bid, the more ads you get for the same amount of money
  2. Sink more money into the campaign at the beginning. Until you can establish a high click through rate, you must pay enough that it lowers your long-term spend.
  3. Could be paying a lot more if Google doesn't see the value of placing your ads. If you have a low cost per impressions, Google runs your ad a lot, but they don't see value from it ' which is essentially, what the Click thru rate means to Google.

We can help walk you through your PPC to understand how your campaign money is being spent and if it makes sense to keep spending it. To learn more about our IT help desk support services and to learn if your company should outsource help desk services, please contact our IT company.

Microsoft Certified Partner Barracuda Networks Axis Barracuda Diamond Partner Adtran Partner
Proxim Wireless Partner Mitel Business Partner Registered Cisco Partner Dell Certified Partner VMWare Logo
Copyright Forward Slash Technology, a St. Louis IT Company. All rights reserved.
St. Louis Managed Services | St. Charles Managed Services | Arnold Managed Services | Manchester Managed Services