Basically it's all about helping customers find your website and business. A pay per click advertising campaign is easy to start. You open an account and deposit some money as a starting balance with the search engine company that you are advertising with. You enter your site's URL, title and description and bid on relevant keywords. A site selling wine might bid on keywords such as "wine", "red wine", "wine club" etc.
When someone searches for "wine club" the details of your site appear, in the form of a search result with the URL, title and description you entered. If they then click on your listing, your account is debited the amount you have bid on that keyword.
Pay per click offers a high level of assurance that your campaign is reaching the proper target. What makes them so effective is that someone who has searched for your product is already qualified when they come to your site, which is selling the product or service they are looking for. Pay per click campaigns, however, are not perfect. Without constant monitoring, you sometimes risk incurring advertising costs that can spiral out of control, focusing on terms that don't convert well for your product or services or lose out during a bidding war.
It is important that your keywords are relevant and link to the page that contains information relating to that keyword. Bidding on keywords can be expensive. An alternative strategy is to bid on related keyword phrases which no-one else is bidding on. You may then be #1 in the rankings, monopolizing the traffic for those searches and only have to pay the minimum amount per click through. Related keywords and phrases can include synonyms, incorrect spellings, alternative words and phrases, closely related words/phrases, and so on.
Then, perhaps most importantly of all, you need a ?landing page?: (a) specific page(s) created for visitors referred from marketing campaigns to maximize conversion. Landing pages can be a series of related pages within an existing site structure or they can be a microsite, which is specifically setup for a campaign, typically with its own campaign URL - an example is Norwich Union's (faintly annoying?) www.quotemehappy.com
There are different types of landing pages that work best depending on the campaign objectives ? a landing page integrated into the sites structure or a landing page specifically created for the campaign.
Integrated pages may not work so well in terms of conversion. Bespoke landing pages tend to produce higher conversion rates but it requires more effort and maintenance. So you need to work out whether the cost of producing this type of page is offset by the potentially higher conversion rates and better campaign results.
Some simple guidelines for effective PPC are keep ads and landing pages relevant; provide enough detail for a decision; capture the audience's imagination and their data as quickly as possible; forget the guru's page length, graphics and menu options type arguments and FIND OUT WHAT WORKS, as in all direct marketing test, test, test.
PPC advertising is one of the easiest campaigns you can set up. Setting up a new account is easy and usually costs no more than $4.95 if you're using Google AdWords. After that, you just have to enter your campaign specifications and monitor your success rate.
Make sure when you first start out, set your daily budget low enough so you won't be part of your own horror story. You can start at something like $10 per day, or what ever is within your budget. You can even start out at some of the smaller search engines, just to get the hang of it. These will have lower search counts, but they also have less competition for the keywords you're bidding on.
No special changes to your website will be needed if the site has a perfect landing page already. If you're seeing a lot of traffic, but the conversion rate isn't as high as you'd like it, then you might consider revamping your landing page. You must continually test and tweak your PPC ad campaigns, but once you find one that is converting well, stick with it until you start to see a decline in conversions.
The successful search engines are used by millions of Internet users each day. They use search engines to find information and products. If your site isn't already on page one of the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), then PPC marketing offers you a way to get there without enduring months of SEO optimization.
By having the ad appear on the first page of search results, the chances of driving tons of targeted traffic to your website increases. The ads begin showing the same day you set up your campaign - no waiting for your site to get indexed or found by search engine spiders. Make sure your ad is relavent, since you pay for every click, you only want targeted traffic.
If you create the right kind of ad campaign for PPC marketing, you'll be able to find people who are ready to buy. Using long-tail keywords help tremendously. For instance, competing for the term 'golf' might cause people to click through who are looking for golf jokes, golf vacations, or golf books.
The more competition they is for a keyword or keyword phrase, the higher you will have to bid to get them. So being specific, or using long-tail keywords is one of the most important aspects of PPC. When you're specific, you will have laser targeted traffic to drive to your site. The more targeted your traffic, the more sales you will make.
If your site sells golf clubs, you've just paid for those searchers to click through on your ad when they're not interested in what you're selling. A better keyword phrase to target would be 'Taylor Made Burner TP Fairway,' because then you know you're targeting a potential golf club buyer.
There are no excess costs to worry about. You only pay when people click on your ads. If those ads bring paying customers, then your profits will more than pay for the PPC ads. Long-tail keyword phrases cost less to bid on than broad keywords do.
PPC allows you to maintain control of what an ad says on the results pages. If the ad isn't as successful as it needs to be, it can easily changed at any time. The changes can take place quickly. Some other forms of online advertisements don't allow you to alter the ad once it's running.
With the control you have over your PPC ads, you can also control your budget for this advertising technique. You can choose the bid amount for each keyword, control how much is spent each day, and pause or halt a campaign with the click of your mouse. With this much power over the cost of it, marketers shouldn't fear PPC marketing, but welcome it into their online strategy.
Both Richard D S Hill & Ron Richardson are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
Richard D S Hill has sinced written about articles on various topics from Social Media Marketing, Internet Marketing and Computers and The Internet. Richard Hill is a Director of , that specialises in CRM, direct and internet marketing for SMEs. He is also non-executive Chairman of. Richard D S Hill's top article generates over 27100 views. to your Favourites.
Ron Richardson has sinced written about articles on various topics from Anti Oxidant, Acai Berries and AutoResponders. Ron Richardson is an online entrepreneur and consultant.Find your Profitable Keywords and Goldmine Niche Market in Minutes - Breakthrough Software makes it Easy for Anyone. Ron Richardson's top article generates over 6600 views. to your Favourites.