Most companies are paying to rank for some keywords, but many ignore their own brand name when setting up their pay per click (PPC) system. On the surface, this makes perfect sense. Why would you pay to rank for the one term you’re pretty much guaranteed results for? If your company name is fairly unique, you are going to be on the first page for a search of it, right? While that is true, there are still a few good reasons why you should consider bidding on your own name in your PPC internet marketing efforts.
–It’s cheap: PPC rates are usually decided by the amount of competition for the term. It’s difficult for other companies to justify paying to rank for your name when there is very little they can legally do with it. This means you should be able to succeed with very little cost per click.
–Brand Management: Using PPC will, at worst, give you an extra link on the page of results. If your company is having any kind of PR trouble, your organic results can be bumped downwards in a floor of news stories. Paying for your own name will ensure you have a good result high on the page.
–Competition: One time when you absolutely have to bid on your own brand name is if your competitors are. It doesn’t happen often, but every now and again some immoral black-hatter will try and bid on your name and funnel the traffic to their own site…or maybe just smear your good name.
–Ambiguity: If your brand name is a fairly common word or phrase, it’s probably a good idea to use PPC for it. Even if you are well optimized, some seemingly innocuous terms can be very competitive.
These are just a few of the reasons you should look into bidding on your on brand. In the end, it’s a pretty simple risk/return proposition. Do a simple test by paying for month and then stopping, it should be clear how effective it is going to be for your business.
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