Five Secrets to Effective Pay-Per-Click Advertising
With so many companies swarming the World Wide Web with their
products, how can you and your products and services stand out?
Your ready answer would most likely be effective marketing. But
how? How can you catch the eye of a surfer skimming carelessly
through web pages? How can you keep the attention of a typical
website reader who spends no more than 30 seconds to read any
given article online? How can you garner sales online?
One marketing technique is to be listed in search engines - but
again, with thousands of companies offering the same products
and services as you, how can your scream for attention be heard?
One technique is pay per click advertising, or PPC. You write
out and place an advertisement in a search engine, list yourself
under keywords of your choosing, and bid on the placement of
your ads. This narrows your field to the people who are actively
searching for your products and services.
If someone finds the ad and clicks it, that person goes to your
website, and you pay the bid price. As a rule, the higher you
bid, the higher your ad goes in the list of search results for a
certain keyword, and the more people will go to your site.
PPC can be used to widen your reach, but it can be very
expensive, especially if people click your ad only out of
curiosity, or if you bid on more keywords than your budget can
handle. However, PPC can get you customers and increase your
profits. If done well, it can earn you money.
Here are five tips to get the most out of PPC.
Get Ten Specific Keywords. If you are a company specializing in
exercise equipment, don't select "exercise equipment" or "gym"
as your keywords. Chances are, there will be hundreds of
thousands of other bidders waiting to jump on those same
keywords. Be specific. Try "treadmill" or "stationary bike."
Select a maximum of ten words, just to test the waters and see
how your potential customers respond. If the first ten
keywords succeed in getting you a larger market, then research
additional keywords which are not as specific. However, if your
first try yields less than satisfactory results, then try
another set of keywords if you can still afford it.
Write Your Ads but Write the Truth. Most ad writers will
broadcast their wares as being the be-all and cure all of all
ills and pains. If they do this, web users will click on their
ads and storm the site. This is well and good if the product or
service will live up to the ad's promise - but what if it
doesn't? A customer clicks, you pay, but the customer doesn't
buy. You lose.
Write a succinct but accurate ad that doesn't sue vague
language. Avoid using words such as "free," "low cost,"
"extremely effective," and "cheap." Tailor your ads to fit the
keyword, and if you can, include your prices on the ads. This
way, you will get a buyer who is ready and willing to purchase
your product or service.
Budget Your Bid. It's tempting to go all out and set your
prices, especially if you think your product will sell. But what
if it won't? Set a monthly budget of about $100 for your bids,
and bid just right - bid too high and you will run out of money,
bid too low and your ads won't show up.
Even if you believe in your product, keep within bid budget, and
do not get into bidding wars, especially with another advertiser
who has a much larger budget than you. Don't waste your time
thinking about your bids. Instead, invest your time in designing
what your ad is linked to, which brings us to:
Make Your Site a Professional One. The standard rules of web
design apply. Check your web content for spelling and
grammatical errors. Update your web content regularly. Fix any
broken links and images. Design your website so that it will be
easy to navigate and load, so do not use Flash animation, as
this will slow down your buyers' browsers. Link your ads to the
exact place on your site where your product or service appears.
Know When to Stop. PPC ad campaigns can lead more buyers to you,
but take care to check profit against spending. If you have
already spent double your advertising budget, but have had
little or no sales, consider dropping your campaign. You can
also measure your progress in clicks. A total of 300 clicks is
average for any ad. If your ad has reached 300 clicks and you
have made no sales yet, then terminate your PPC project.
Equally as important as knowing when to stop is knowing that all
is not yet lost and you can still go on. Running a web-based
business means investing time, money, and effort, so keep your
PPC up and running as long as you are raking money in. PPC,
after all, may first mean pay-per-click, but, if you're
successful, can soon mean Profiting Perfectly in Cash.