So you’ve decided that the best way to reach the top of the SERPs and gain further qualified traffic on your e-commerce site is by instituting a Pay Per Click Campaign.
Before you start giving Google your hard-earned money, put a bit of thought into the best ways to make this form of marketing successful.
Keyword Mining
Keyword Mining is the most important part of your pay per click campaign and deserves the most amount of thought. Start by making a list based on the description of your product or service and your target market demographics.
You can find some great suggestions for keywords in customer testimonials or in an online forum at your site, these people are speaking about you and your product in the way anyone else interested will.
If there is specific terminology used in your business, note that as well. Remember to include common misspellings of your keywords and add in appropriate geographic identifiers, if necessary.
Next, take a look at your website analytics. What key words or phrases are people inputting to get to your site? Are they properly targeting the content on your page? If you have a search box on your site, that is an even better way to find out what most visitors are searching for.
Lastly, you can determine what keywords your competitors are bidding on through a paid services site that analyses the keywords of your competitors (although you can browse their site on your own for obvious targets).
Organise And Prioritise Your Keywords
Now that you have a good, long list of keywords, it is time to determine which ones will give your Pay Per Click Campaign the greatest value.
Start with a simple spreadsheet and input all of your keywords in one column. If you feel comfortable creating landing pages and ads which are specific to certain demographics, then you expand upon this list by moving certain keywords to match your target markets. If not, simply use the spreadsheet to move your keywords into the property order of priority. The ones at the top are the ones you will spend the most money on.
Another way to prioritise is according to current trends. Take a look at the trends analysing websites to help you understand what potential customers are using right now as keywords to find content similar to yours. Many products or services are seasonal. This may change the priority of your keyword list.
Bid On Your Keywords
Now that you have a better idea of what keywords will work best for your Pay Per Click Campaign, go ahead and get started. Remember that this will be a work in progress and that you should go back to your account summary page often, even daily, to examine the results.
With a pay per click campaign for your website, you are paying for the performance of certain keywords in conjunction with your advertising material. It just makes sense to devote the most amount of time and energy into determining the right keywords for the maximum ROI.
See you at the top of Google!
Sean Rasmussen
SEO Australia Pacific
AussieSEO.com © 2007 - 2010
Great information Sean
The pieces are starting to come together. Not quite there yet.
Good to hear Gee, all good things take time. You will get there mate.
Hi Sean,
I’m looking forward to getting the homestudy course as I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a Pay Per Click section in it. I always like your material as it’s always very comprehensive yet easy to understand and follow along.
I’m going to use the homestudy materials to launch my first pay per click campaign. So, hopefully, I’ll have some results to share soon.
The PPC manual will be a great help to get you started Jazz
My reply was knocked off or disappeared Jazz. But Sean has got it right – you need something like his manual to make sure you don’t fall into any pitfalls
Of course with the recent introduction of the google sktool, the landscape for mining keywords for pay per click campaigns has changed for the better. If I were to do another pay per click campaign, the sktool would be my tool of first choice, used in conjunction with the keyword tool external.
.-= Wal Heinrich´s last blog ..Cheapest Granny Flats In Australia =-.
Great suggestions Wal. I have found the Google KW tools and Excel to be one of the best keyword mining combination’s around.
Market Samurai is another great tool that I use and have found it to be more powerful still, although there is a fee to purchase the software.
.-= Cemil´s last blog ..Scribe SEO Plugin – Making SEO Easy =-.
Hi Sean
Every time I see an article on PPC it looks like it is a science of it’s own, and really it probably is.
To me having a PPC campaign looks like an amazing amount of analysing, testing, and monitoring with keywords.
Even though it is an advanced technique, I have no doubt that in time I will be embracing the usefulness of PPC, when I feel confident that I can create a good Blog site. It will be then that I will need to start enhancing it for SEO.
.-= Elly´s last blog .. =-.
Another excellent article, Sean, but the “Step By Step Pay Per Click Tips” will be getting incorporated into my Learn and Earn notebook seeing as I’m a long way from attempting to implement a PPC campaign. Hopefully, it’s a page I’ll be coming back to with serious intent in the future.
.-= Don White´s last blog ..New Ireton Data =-.
Hi Sean,
I am not ready to put anymore money into a pay per click campaign just yet.
I jumped in too soon and really didn’t understand how it worked .
It is something that I will be doing when I understand a lot more about the process.
Hi Sean,
I have my Google AdWords $50. free voucher plus free online training to improve my advertising performance so I may have the experience to run a PPC campaign in the not to distant future.
Your Step By Step Pay Per Click Tips here are very helpful also. I need to get over a mental block I have about researching long tailed keywords on Market Samurai. Like Gee, hopefully the pieces will fall into place for me very soon.
.-= Jill Brown´s last blog ..Couples Marry at Common Law =-.
Hi Jill,
Market Samurai is actually very easy to use once you get the hang of it. If you follow their videos step by step, you’ll be just fine. They’re very easy to understand.
So, just try it out. You’ll come to love it. I promise.
.-= Jazz Salinger´s last blog ..Finding Your Passion =-.
Hi Jill
Great you have a voucher – just make sure you have your strategy refined as $50 can go very quickly !
.-= Jayne Pleysier´s last blog ..How A Marketing Service Can Help Your Business Grow =-.
With pay per click I am always wondering how much money makes sense to invest.
A certain percent of turnover that you have already made with a product? Or a percentage of the possible turnover per unit sold? Should you rather have a few adds with top keywords or more adds with less popular keywords?
I agree that pay per click has its place, but at the moment I am trying to rank organically and create some money first before I spend it
.-= Renee´s last blog ..Self Improvement Books – What Are Your Favourites =-.
With PPC it really pays to completely understand it and also how to track the results or otherwise the costs can blow out.
It is probably best to start quite low investment-wise and test the waters first. Also, you can test between the types of KWs you mention … one will cost less for sure.
I personally think that going ‘organic” (LOL) is the best way to start unless a master at PPC. For me PPC will come when I have profits that I can then use – not from my starting out budget. Have you ever read any of Perry Marshall’s stuff on PPC?
Hi Peter,
no, I have not heard of Perry Marshall, probably because PPC is not yet in my marketing plan. Not sure if that is the right way to go, but I want to pay the PPC from money actually earned via IM, so it still has to wait a little while
.-= Renee´s last blog ..Self Improvement Books – What Are Your Favourites =-.
Just yell (or email!) if you want a link to his stuff – through my FB will do (Peter Damien Ryan) – will be glad to pass it on.
Like you I am not into PPC – and won’t be for a long while. I am also sure Sean will have a lot of guidance for how newbies can approach PPC properly and at less risk.
Hi Peter,
It’s really great that you’re willing to share your stuff. I think the more we help each other; the more likely we are to succeed. So, thanks for sharing your knowledge.
.-= Jazz Salinger´s last blog ..Finding Your Passion =-.
@ Jazz – sharing is part of me – so thanks for the encouragement Jazz. I hope I do add something of value here and not just get.
Perry Marshall has written a fantastic EBook on Google Adwords PPC which is really worth the time to sit down and read (it also has an adwords voucher!) I am on his email list and he is currently focusing on Facebook PPC – some very interesting videos and information!
.-= Jayne Pleysier´s last blog ..How A Marketing Service Can Help Your Business Grow =-.
The trick is to choose your keywords carefully and long-tailed are cheaper to buy. Long-tailed choices will also direct the type of traffic which you are wanting – those ready to buy versus those searching for information. Also using negative keywords is important as it is amazing some of the things your adverts can display for!
.-= Jayne Pleysier´s last blog ..How A Marketing Service Can Help Your Business Grow =-.