One of the main goals of every website should be to rank as highly as possible in the organic rankings of the search engines. Since this goal is a lofty one that takes tons of hard work and time through effective search engine optimization, one of the best equalizers for getting traffic to a site has been the paid search results in the search engines.

Most of the main search engine marketing platforms, like Google AdWords, can deliver targeted, short-term traffic in large amounts. As easy as these platforms make it sound through their online training programs, using these sophisticated advertising systems correctly is not possible without extensive training and “real world” experience. Here are the main reasons why you should strongly consider hiring a professional SEM agency to setup and maintain your paid search marketing campaigns:

First thing you should know about paid search marketing, also known as pay-per-click, is that it takes a LOT of time to learn how to use… on even a basic level. And that’s just learning how to use the platform. To set up and maintain an effective PPC campaign, you are looking at an investment of hours per week. That’s assuming that you are able to best utilize the tools provided.

As it goes with most things in life, the more “real world” experience you have with something, the better you tend to be with it. And PPC is no exception to that. Certainly someone can be born with an inherent knack for online marketing, but even skilled email and print marketers often have difficulty grasping advanced PPC concepts. Getting to a level where you would be considered a practically-experienced expert in marketing with PPC could take years.

3. Budgetary concerns. 

Time is money. If you’re spending hours doing PPC training, that’s time you’re taking away from your clients. And the experience argument factors in again when you consider that it may cost you thousands of dollars in advertising (through trial and error of making ad buys on your own) to perfect an effective PPC campaign strategy. That’s why it’s often far better to hire someone you can trust to set your campaign up right and optimize it over time, using proven strategies that only a seasoned PPC veteran would be able to quickly put into use.

Getting to specifics about the PPC platforms available, keyword research is a critical part of an effective campaign. Knowing what keywords are relevant to your local search market, and the specific demographics you are targeting can make the difference between blowing hundreds of dollars a week displaying your ads to people who aren’t interested in your services, and truly reaching the audience your marketing message needs to connect with.

It’s one matter to know what keywords to target, it’s another to be a persuasive marketing copywriter. Pay-Per-Click ads need to be written in a constrained format with severe character limits. They also need to persuade an online audience into clicking through to the value proposition your real estate business delivers upon. Writing in a creative, persuasive manner that is within the substantial editorial guidelines provided by the search engines is not an easy task for an experienced search marketer, much less a novice.

6. Landing pages. 

Then we explore the question: where are you planning to send all that traffic? Do you know what page on your website will get the best return on investment (ROI)? Will that page fulfill the value proposition presented by your ads? Will that result in contact form submissions and phone calls from potential clients? Has the best page to send your traffic to even been designed yet? If not, who is going to design that page, and know how to do so? Probably not the IT manager in your office…