So you have just opened the doors to your new online business. You website is still too new to generate any traffic from the search engines. So while you are waiting for your site to be spidered and indexed, what can you do to start driving customers through the doors?
The first thing I would suggest is start with an aggressive link building campaign. Whenever you have any spare time, try to seek out some extra incoming links. This will ensure that not only are you spidered sooner and more frequently, but also once you are indexed that you will rank higher in the se’s.
But this article isn’t about link building, so I will stop there. The real question is, should you, or should you not dive into AdWords, or any PPC Campaign for that matter? Weather or not to advertise with a PPC Engine really depends on a lot of things, your advertising budget, market competitiveness, and even overall site design.
Before starting any paid advertising campaign, double check to ensure that your site is ready for traffic. Check for the obvious things like dead links, but more importantly how is the navigation on your site? Assume that when a user comes to your site they know nothing about you or your products. How easy is it to find answers to any questions they may have? If they have to hunt around chances are they will go elsewhere and you will be out your 25 cents for the click. Make sure your site is user friendly before investing too much into PPC.
How competitive are your main keywords? If your website is small, chances are you wont be willing to pay two dollars a click. I would suggest coming up with a list of as many relevant keywords as possible. Check on Overture to see how much these keywords are going for, and keep all the inexpensive ones. These cheaper keywords will probably draw much less traffic, however this traffic is likely to be more qualified and less expensive! And for a new business starting out, less expensive is definitely a good thing.
If your new company targets a specific market niche that few online retailers cater to, I say go with PPC until your natural listings appear. These keywords are likely to be very inexpensive, and the traffic will be highly qualified.
What it truly all comes down to though, is your advertising budget. PPC advertising for a new business is sort of a chicken and egg thing. You don’t have the revenue to pay for advertising, but with out advertising you wont make any sales. If you are able to target some low cost 5-10 cent words, even a budget of five dollars a day may bring in some sales and help to get the ball rolling.