The characteristics and main functions of paid ranking are as follows.
(1) The basic characteristic of paid ranking is that it is paid per click. Advertisements appear in the search results (usually at the front). If they are not clicked by users, no advertising fee is charged.
(2) Bidding ads appear at the front of the search results, which is easy to attract users’ attention and clicks, so the effect is more significant. Advertisements appearing on the search results page are highly relevant to the user’s search content, which enhances the targeting of ads.
(3) Advertisers can control the advertising price and advertising fee themselves.
(4) Advertisers can conduct statistical analysis on the number of users clicking on ads.
(5) It is effective quickly. After recharging, you can set the keyword price. After passing the review, you can immediately enter the top ten of Baidu or Google rankings, and you can control your position.
(6) There is no limit on the number of keywords. You can set an unlimited number of keywords for promotion in the bidding background.
Of course, there are also disadvantages to paid ranking.
(1) It is expensive. For highly competitive keywords, the click price can reach several yuan or even tens of yuan, and you will have to pay thousands or even tens of thousands of yuan a month. If you want to do it for a long time, you will need to invest a lot of money in the long term. Moreover, for click-based ads, if you don’t control the daily consumption, this kind of advertising investment will be a bottomless pit, and the annual advertising cost is difficult to control.
(2) Management is troublesome. If you want to ensure the position and control the cost, you need to check the price every day and set the most appropriate price to determine the advertising display position.
(3) Personnel management. You need a dedicated person to screen keywords, select suitable keywords, measure prices, check the results every day, and adjust keyword bids and rankings based on the results. This requires a lot of effort.
(4) The independence of each engine. Each engine is independent. If you do Baidu bidding, Google will not rank at the same time, and Yahoo will not rank either. If you want to rank in all engines, you will have to spend several times the promotion fee repeatedly.
(5) Poor stability. The ranking changes according to the changes in the bids of all parties, which is difficult to control. Moreover, once the fees in the account are used up, the ranking will disappear immediately.
(6) Malicious clicks. There are many malicious clicks in the bidding rankings. A lot of advertising costs may be consumed by competitors, advertising companies, and people who are bored. These behaviors will not bring any benefits and cannot be prevented.
(7) What search engine service providers usually call “pay by performance” is actually “pay by click”. In fact, it is not necessarily accurate to use “clicks” as the “effect” of online advertising, because even normal click behavior of potential users is still a long way from the real benefits. There are too many uncertain factors as to whether clicks can be converted into final benefits.