A question that comes up a lot is whether it’s cost effective having your company name and your brand names as keywords in a pay per click campaign. It can seem as though it isn’t necessary especially if your website ranks highly for these keywords in the natural search listings.
Avinash Kaushik ponders the issue in his blog and comes to the conclusion that it’s better to use pay per click for generic, non-brand names and allocate resources to search engine optimisation to make sure that the website is optimised for the brand names.
He received this comment in agreement “I would fire anyone who would spend my precious SEM money on Brand keyphrases”.
In fact there are some good reasons why you should include brand names in a ppc campaign:
- If you have a paid listing and a natural listing you occupy more of the real estate on the page. This multiple exposure can have the effect of enhancing the credibility in the minds of the searcher. People are more likely to click the organic listing just because they notice the paid listing.
- The more spaces on the screen you occupy, the less are occupied by your competitors.
- You have direct control over the wording of a paid ad so for example can include a strong call to action.
- It’s not always the case that you show up in the natural listings for your brand names. The natural rankings can fluctuate so by having two shots at it you are covering more options.
- You can target misspellings and variations of your name in paid search more easily than you can on your website.
