How To Advertise Your Business Online
How To Advertise Your Business Online Using pay-per-click
advertising to generate targeted leads for your business.
What Is Pay-Per-Click? Pay-per-click is a method search engines
use that allows you to list your site at the top of their search
engine results. You don't pay for your site to be listed in the
search engine; you pay for the number of times someone actually
clicks on your ad. This is often considered to be one of the
cheapest yet most cost-effective ways to advertise your business
online.
How Pay-Per-Click Works You select keywords that allow the
search engine to find your ad when someone performs a search
using the same words. For each pay-per-click campaign you
create, you determine how much you are willing to pay to appear
in the results. The higher you bid, the higher your ad will be
listed in the search engine. There are three highly recommended
search engines to choose from. Google, Findwhat and Overture
rank the highest among customer satisfaction.
Google.com Google is one of the best brand names in the search
engine business. They partner with AOL, Ask Jeeves, Lycos,
Earthlink, Lycos Canada, Netscape, Compuserve, AT&T Worldnet and
NYTimes.com. They also have targeted sponsor links to Disney.com
online, FamilyFun.com, Go.com and Movies.com.
Google provides a keyword suggestion tool and they only bill
advertisers after someone has clicked on their ads. Advertisers
have the ability to target their ads to over 225 countries in
several different languages. There is a $5.00 set up fee and the
minimum bid is only 5 cents.
Is This For You? Some people swear by pay-per-click, stating how
it has allowed them to market their business on a small budget.
Others feel that pay-per-click is a black hole. Visitors click
on the links; however, it doesn't always lead to new customers
or sales. My suggestion: try it yourself. There are several
factors to consider when using pay-per-click, so take it for a
test drive, try several different keywords and descriptions, and
see if it's right for you.
Tips:
- Give yourself time to learn the process for each search engine.
- Start small. Bid low so you won't lose too much if it doesn't
work for you right away.
- Test. See if different keywords or descriptions will change
your results.