Pay per click (PPC) campaigns are one of the best ways to get your company’s website firmly established and drive up your search engine rankings.
Participating in this form of online advertising is not cheap, but there are ways you can keep your costs down while still enjoying good results. Here we provide some tips for getting the best return on a small investment.
Starting Your Pay Per Click Campaign
Before you begin your Pay Per Click Campaign, take some time to look at the ads being posted by your competitors. The more established the company, the greater the odds are that their advertising has been in place for some time and that the ads you are viewing are those which are most effective.
Pay attention to the style, graphics, and text being used and base your own upon these ideas. If you want to go even further than that, you can find an online tool for purchase that will let you see what keywords your competitors are bidding on and how much they are paying.
Think long and hard about your landing page(s) and how your ad will relate to it. The best results come from ads that are clearly pertinent to the landing page you choose in terms of keywords and text. You may also want to reverse this process and come up with your ad first, then develop a landing page that specifically targets visitors who click on it. Make sure it includes a call to action in either the form of a sale, signing up as a subscriber, or a form to fill out to receive further information.
Keywords, Keywords, Keywords
In a Pay Per Click Campaign, it’s all about the keywords. Too often, beginning advertisers simply bid on the most common, and most expensive, keywords. There are some very effective keywords and phrases and their variations that will cost you less per click than the more obvious ones.
Perform a search of your own on your target keywords and see just how many sponsored listings appear. The more advertisers, the higher the cost. Try using Google’s free keyword tool to determine which keywords cost the most due to stiff competition.
There are options for choosing less competitive keywords. You may want to select exact matches and avoid broad keywords that are more popular. Phrase match keywords are another option that may save you a bit of money per click. You can also utilise negative matches so that you are not paying for clicks that are unlikely to result in conversions.
Consider long tail keywords, too so that you can attract prospects who are ready to buy instead of just browsing, which will cost you a click and therefore the click price.
Getting Good Results
The most successful PPC ads focus on the value proposition to the customer. When you offer something for free, or at a discount, you are more likely to see a higher number of clicks and subsequent conversions. Make the value of your offer clear.
It is best to avoid marketing that promises something the consumer will never get. Don’t use empty promises of free or discounted goods or services to lure someone in only to find that your ad was deceptive. This results in frustration, a bad reputation, and is a waste of your marketing budget.
A Pay Per Click Campaign can be a great way to jump start your online business and is a great strategy to include into your internet marketing program. Even if you don’t have a large budget for marketing and advertising, you can make your campaign quite cost effective by following these tips.
See you at the top of Google!
Sean Rasmussen
SEO Australia Pacific
AussieSEO.com © 2007 - 2010
A while back I used a little known PPC service and although I did not make any sales I did climb the ranks in Google and I got PR as well. I don’t know if I got PR from the links I built (not many) or from the PPC advertising.
Hi MAB
Pagerank is determined largely (if not, solely) by the amount and quality of links pointing back to your sites pages. This is Google’s way of determining a pages importance.
Regards – Sean
Hi Sean,
My IMPOTY package arrived today and I’m really wanting to get started on the PPC section. I’ve been wanting to start this for a while and I think the time is right.
I just need to improve in a few areas like keyword research, writing ads, choosing a landing page… But, I’ve been looking at my competitor’s ads and I think I want to give it a go.
I think I will learn more from running a PPC campaign than I will by waiting until I’ve got everything just right. I’ll start with a second tier advertiser and set a budget.
.-= Jazz Salinger´s last blog ..Learn Internet Marketing and Win =-.
Sounds good Jazz, slow and steady wins the race
Hi Sean
Thanks for explaining about Pay Per Click Campaigns. It seems to me that there is quite a bit involved in getting it all together, especially getting the right copy on the advertising to sell the product and using target keywords to attract SEO and customers who want to buy my products.
This is an area I really need to study a bit more so I can optimise my chances of success in PPC advertising. I can see how it is a very important contingent of my internet marketing program and necessary to my overall success as an online merchant.
.-= Elly Wilson´s last blog .. =-.
As usual, more excellent tips from Sean. Certainly a technique that requires future consideration but currently I think I’m a long way from considering a PPC campaign. I’m more inclined to try utilizing other Internet Marketing strategies and techniques before committing limited funds to Pay-Per-Click.
.-= Don White´s last blog ..New Ireton Data =-.
Hi Sean,
Some good tips here for a PPC campaign. I’m sure a campaign like this would be beneficial to making online sales. Google has recently sent me a $50. voucher to spend on advertising with free online training as well.
This training should improve my advertising performance and I’m looking forward to getting started with a PPC campaign.
.-= Jill Brown´s last blog ..Couples Marry at Common Law =-.
I am having trouble with the landing page of my ppc campaigns. Google won’t allow you to land on an affiliate sales page and I feel if people are directed to a blog site they won’t be bothered to read it. Was just wondering how you work around this?
.-= Jackie Stenhouse´s last blog ..Anxiety Separation in Children =-.
There’s no real way around it Jackie. If you do not have the landing page on your own site, you will not be able to successfully use adwords. I would suggest trying other PPC options such as Yahoo Search Marketing of Facebook ads if you are promoting affiliate links.
You could also create a single page and use that as your landing page Jackie. Depending on the blogging platform you are using and the template (or theme), you can also change the design of the landing page slightly so that it doesn’t look as much as a blog.
.-= Cemil´s last blog ..Scribe SEO Plugin – Making SEO Easy =-.
I have all but given up on PPC for the time being. Managing the promotion budget is hard work during the early stages. With minimal money coming in, it pays to concentrate efforts on good SEO and great content. Once the cash flow increases (here’s hoping) I will start to look at Tier 2 providers first and work my way up.
.-= Cemil´s last blog ..Importance of a Wealth Creation Plan =-.