If you haven’t tried to advertise your business using pay per click advertising yet, maybe now is the time to try it out.

Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is the form of advertising made most popular by Google’s Adwords program, and are the type of ads that you notice on the right hand side of the page of any results page on Google whenever you search for something.

The way it works on Google is you choose keywords – words that your prospective customers might use to search for things on Google – then create a short, classified style ad to be presented when someone does a search for what you do – decorative concrete for instance.

There are entire courses written on perfecting Google Adwords campaigns, and there is no way the topic could be served justice in a short article like this one.

But what can be done in a few short articles, is a few ideas that maybe you hadn’t considered about advertising online could be presented.

You must never forget that the economy has moved online, meaning: at the very least, people are starting their research about solving their problem by going online.

Your best bet at being seen as a solution to their problem is to enter the conversation they are having in their head, and the quickest way to make this happen is to advertise online in the places where they are.

And where is everyone online right now, excluding Google?

Facebook.

And, lucky for you, Facebook has an advertising service that rivals Google’s, and is better in a few ways. You can see them on the right hand side of your Facebook page.

Facebook is a great place for beginning online advertisers because you can choose between actual pay per click, which means you pay a few cents every time someone clicks on your ad, and pay per impression, which means you pay a few cents for every 1000 times your ad is displayed.

Pay per impression is good if you have a small group of people your ad will be presented to, and might be the choice for the local decorative concrete contractor.

The other nice thing about Facebook is the ability to narrow down exactly who your ad gets presented to.

With Google and Facebook you can narrow down by location, but where Google shines with keywords, Facebook shines with demographics, such as what people are interested in, what their favorite books are, etc.

Do you see the power you have with that information?

Here is a way to possibly create a Facebook ad campaign for your decorative concrete business.

First, you need to have a Facebook account, which is free.  Then scroll down to the bottom of the page, and click on the “advertising.”

Click on the green “create an ad” button in the top right.

Now you can drill down your target – be smart about this, and it could really pay off.  For example, let’s say you’ve researched your existing customers, and you’ve found that your average customer lives in your area (obviously), is 40 years old, female, is in the PTA, is a homemaker, and her favorite show is Grey’s Anatomy.

Chances are, if your average customer has these qualities, then other people with these qualities could also become your customer.

So target your Facebook ad to only show to women in these categories, then depending on the estimated number of people on Facebook these ads would reach decide whether you want to pay per click or pay per 1000 impressions.

Design your ad to be clicked by the right person – include a picture of your work and write a good headline that promises a benefit, or solution to a problem.

Set your daily limit (how much you’re willing to spend per day) and hit “Place Order.”

You’re done, you could just set it and forget it, but it’s not the best idea – link to either your website, or your Facebook page, or a specific page just for your Facebook ad clickers.

Look at that! You’re advertising online, congratulations.