Five Reasons to Bid on Your Brand Keywords

Your company’s brand terms will rank organically with little trouble even with a basic SEO efforts. So many organizations question spending marketing money on bidding for your own brand’s terms. Here are five top reasons why you should and make this a no-brainer decision.

Reason Number 1

Brand keywords are probably going to be your cheapest cost per click keywords possible. When you first launch the ads they may cost a bit more, but over time, as the quality score improves, you should see the CPC decrease. Competing businesses or even partners can also bid on your brand’s terms, so having your ads run will ensure you top position at the lowest costs.

Reason Number 2

Brand ads are great navigational aides. Both the site links and phone extension options offer an extra user interface design element that helps visitors find what they are looking for or contact you faster. It doesn’t get any easier than having the “Call Now” button displayed on mobile phones for one-touch dialing to your business. And don’t forget, you can even customize the site links based on ad groups for more targeted navigation.

Bidding on Brand Ads Helps Increase listings in Search Results

Reason number 3

Using Ad Rotation testing of your brands, you may develop further insights of how your brand message is being conveyed. A click on the ad can indicate a “like” of your ad’s message and offers an opportunity to further develop your brand message. Also, changes in your impression count can provide an indication of marketing impact from “offline” marketing activities such as radio, television, or press releases.

Reason number 4

Even brand-related keywords can have long tail searches associated with established businesses. Searches will use a range of related keywords or long tail topics to find more precise information on your business. Terms such as “acme coupons,” jobs, reviews, complaints, or product names are very common. These long tail keywords could actually give you little additional insight into how people view your business. If certain terms are trending upward, such as complaints, it might be time to invest in changes in your customer service.

Reason number 5

Stealing real estate is my most important reason. Yes, from SEO the search results page will display your website organically, but why not be greedy and take up more search results? Much like the strategy in winning at the Monopoly game, the more properties you own in a solid block, the harder it is for people to skip by the search results you have control of. Also, if your business does have some negative entries, this will help to push them down the page.

Of course there are some cons when it comes to bidding on your own brand. The additional costs to your PPC budget can be an unnecessary expense when a marketing budget is being reduced. The argument often provided is, “If we get it free, then why pay for it?” which can be valid if you haven’t taken advantage of these good reasons first.