Pay per click allows you to target specific markets by their interests or where they live, making it a great advertising option. Results can be measured with statistics and spending controlled to suit. It's very much viable for small business owners who might be considering things like television, news print and radio.

Like anything else, PPC has disadvantages and shouldn't be entered into without doing your homework. Hundreds or even thousands of dollars worth of advertising could be wasted if you attempt a campaign that isn't planned and doesn't have a strategy. There is a lot of information offering guidance when deciding your PPC strategy, so it's a good idea to learn more about it.

However, getting things off the ground doesn't require a book worth of information. There are a few basic PPC mistakes that most business owners make when they start out. They're easy to fix, and repairing these problems can increase your PPC campaign's effectiveness dramatically. Here are the most common errors people make, and how to fix them.

1. The most common error is using your home page as the landing page. It doesn't matter what search engine you're using as a base for your campaign. While it seems logical to send prospective sales to your website's homepage, it can detract from your sales. Here's how.

When people click on your ad , they are looking for a very specific thing that you've been advertising. Landing pages can be specific to ads, so that the person is taken directly to what it is you are advertising. This way, the customer gets exactly what they are looking for. Landing pages should be focused on keywords or phrases used in the advertisement and don't clutter it up with other links or distractions.

Mistake 2. Landing pages that are confusing lose sales. Your PPC campaign will work by giving a customer an ad targeted to their keyword. The landing page they then arrive at should be related to that keyword, so don't give the customer an excuse to back out. Make it easy for them to find what they are looking for. You should have multiple landing pages if you are promoting multiple items with keywords or phrases.

Mistake 3. Using ineffective ad copy that just doesn't suit. You don't have a lot of space to work in PPC ads. Try to look for impact from your ad copy and avoid old clichs that you see on store windows like "qualified technicians" or "quality guaranteed". Even if these statements are true about your business, they just don't work in pay per click advertising. Put some thought into an attention-grabbing headline and follow it up with a strong promise you can give your customers. Line three is a good spot to include special features of the product or service, or an offer you want to make.

4. Low bids. Different search engines use different methods to determine where your ad goes. Yahoo and Google use the relevancy of your ad and the bid price to determine your positioning. It's a big mistake to not aim for one of those first few advertising positions, as much as 85 percent of people click on the first three on the list. So you need to put some careful thought into your ad to get the best results.