So, I’m sitting here this weekend thinking about Google, the most powerful search engine in the world, and their Pay Per Click options under AdSense.  The question in my head is should  I use pay per click.  After all, we haven’t perfected this search engine optimization thing yet so our Google page rank still is not there yet.  We’re your card reader guys or your network camera guys, and this search engine stuff is not our core competency.  I really need to get those prospects who are perusing the web looking for electronic security integrators to find me instead of my ugly, nasty, and incompetent competitors (who all have halitosis).  Hopefully you all know that I was seeking to provide some humor with those adjectives that described our competitors, but the truth is the that we’ve got to get better on the web because they (our competitors) are getting all the play!

The question remains should we use Google AdSense and their pay per click options to get our name in the forefront for the most common searches for our industry?  I’m just not sure right now to be honest.  First, I’m not sure how long it is going to take us to get our page ranks where we want them.  I need to figure that out first so we can put a weight on our lost opportunities due to not being ranked.  Second, I need to figure out how much keywords like “access control Raleigh”, “ip cameras Richmond”, “network cameras Pittsburgh”, or “managed security services Tampa” would cost me.  I need to figure out a cost so I can do a break even analysis and also so I can look at the return on investment.  If it makes business sense to do it for a month or two to give my team some breathing room while we work on the SE optimization, I would certainly give it a try if I knew other businesses that tried it had positive results.

Let’s face it, Google is a machine.  We spend all kinds of time and money trying to optimize to them and when we don’t do it well, we pay them for pay per click.  What a wonderful business they must have.  It’s actually brilliant when you think about it.  Since they are so smart I’m sure they have all kinds of data that can tell you how many times the words “CCTV cameras Raleigh” or “network cameras Raleigh” are searched for each month.  When it was searched for, how many times did the searcher click on the pay per click ad?  These items should be fairly straight forward for the folks at Google, so maybe I’ll contact them so I could work on a budget for this campaign if I decide to do it.  What I’m really interested in is what other businesses say about SEO and pay per click options.  I’d love to find some forums or blogs that discuss SEO options or pay per click options.  What do other businesses like ours think about these options?  I’d love to hear comments from anyone on this.  After all, we provide network cameras, IP cameras, access control, and card readers solutions for clients, so this is kind of new to me.