Boost Your Business With Pay Per Click Advertising
Buying your way to the top with Pay Per Click...
By Ed Kohler
Buying your way to the top with Pay Per Click Advertising
Imagine if you could advertise ONLY to people who have actually expressed an interest in doing business with you? That's basically what happens whenever a prospective customer or client types a phrase into a search engine that's relevant to your business. But how do search engines decide which sites are worthy of top placement in their search results? It turns out that some of the results are ranked by the search engine's computers while others are simply paid advertisements from companies willing to buy their way to the top using Pay Per Click Advertising.
Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC for short) is an online advertising format that allows you to buy your way to the top of search results pages for search phrases relevant to your business. Businesses buy advertising on specific search phrases, and are then charged each time a person clicks through to their web site.
How does this work?
Try running a search on a major search engine like Yahoo or Google for a common consumer product like DVD players. When reviewing the results, you'll likely see a set of results labeled as Sponsor Results or Sponsored Link. Some results may appear in the same format as the main search results on the page, while others are listed within colored text boxes along the site of the page. All of those results are paid advertisements from the sites listed within the ads.
The ads are ranked based on how much a business is willing to pay to advertise on each search phrase. In the example search for DVD players the current top advertiser is currently paying $0.81 per click one penny more than the #2 advertiser.
The ads are purchased through pay per click advertising suppliers, and the two largest happen to be owned by Google and Yahoo. Google's program is called Adwords and displays results on Google.com, AOL, Ask Jeeves, many smaller search engines. Yahoo's program is run by an acquired company called Overture, and the results appear on Yahoo, MSN, AltaVista, and many other syndication partners.
Why should I pay for traffic?
For businesses that have had success with search engine optimization, the idea of paying for visitors is not particularly enticing. However, if you can make more money off a visitor to your web site than it costs to get them there, why wouldn't you pay for those visitors? Keep in mind that you can choose exactly what search terms you want to advertise on, and you only pay when a searcher actually clicks on your ad, so it generally comes down to deciding how much you can afford to spend for those visitors rather than whether it's worth doing at all.
How much should I spend?
The main factors influencing how much money can be spent on a PPC campaign are:
1. How many searches are conducted per month using phrases relevant to your business?
2. How much are you, along with your competitors, willing to pay for those terms?
The average monthly ad spend on PPC advertising is a couple thousand dollars, but this varies immensely from less than $50/month for regionally targeted and niche businesses to millions a month by large national retailers.
The goal of any advertising campaign should be to bring in more money from the campaign than it costs to run it. Pay Per Click is no different, but the level of detail you can measure in PPC is significantly higher than most types of advertising. For example, with relatively inexpensive (some are even free) tools, you can determine which ads are generating sales or leads for your business. Beyond that, you can determine how much money you spent on a specific ad to generate a sale or a lead. By measuring what's working, you can aggressively advertise on terms that prove to be winners for your business while shutting down ads that don't deliver.
Tips for Success
1. Advertise on a large number of relevant search phrases. Brainstorm beyond the first dozen terms that come to mind to describe your business. Advertise on the terms used to describe your products, the product names, product codes, and the questions a prospect might type into a search engine that your services answer, and more.
2. Build unique ads for each search phrase. It takes a lot more time to write a unique ad for each search phrase relevant to your business rather than creating one ad for all of your search phrases, but the extra work will definitely be rewarded. Ads that are aligned with the corresponding search term receive more clicks, which will mean more targeted traffic, and in some cases paying less per click (on Google Adwords) due to the intricacies of how the advertising is priced.
3. Send visitors to the most appropriate page of your web site. If you place an ad for a specific product within your online store, don't send visitors to your homepage and force them to dig for what they just searched. This will frustrate your visitors and increase the chance that they'll hit the dreaded Back button.
4. Track your results. Spending money without measuring the return on your investment is not a good business practice. At the very least, consider installing the free tracking tools available through Google Adwords and Overture to measure which terms are delivering results for your business. Beyond that, consider using a 3rd party statistics tool with conversion analysis to compile the results of your various pay per click programs into one easy to manage interface.
Go for it
People are searching for what you sell at this very moment! If your site is not showing up near the top of the results, your competition thanks you.
About the Author
Ed Kohler is the President of Haystack In A Needle, Inc. (http://www.haystackinaneedle.com/), a web marketing firm in Minneapolis, MN, offering search engine optimization and pay per click advertising consulting services.
PPC Management Starts with A Great Keyword List
By Darren Yates
Your keyword lists are the root of a good PPC campaign. You should properly research and source quality keywords. Create a good long list. Go deep and go wide, by this I mean investigate every avenue and every avenue off every avenue etc.
Here's a quick example of how to expand your lists by investigating related avenues. In this example I'll use mortgage as the base keyword.
Mortgage is a very competitive keyword on the Net simply because the commissions are so high. So how do you break into the market without paying over the odds?
Create your first list and think of different ways your prospect could interpret mortgage e.g. buy house, bad credit mortgage, best loan, house purchase finance, no status loan, home finance, etc. This really is only slightly removed from the base keyword, you should dig deeper still.
Next try expanding into types of mortgage flexible, interest only etc. take these and mix them up with your first list, as you do this you'll find avenues of keyword groups present themselves from single keywords e.g. interest only house loan, flexible home finance etc.
You could create an Ad group focused entirely on mortgage company names take that further still and add a .com to the name or a co.uk or your own country extension e.g. www.somemortgagecompany.com.au It doesn't matter if this domain doesn't exist, people type things like this into a search engine so it's possible you can pick up low cost traffic with these keywords.
Avoid the general keywords and dig a little deeper to expand on related terms or, here's a good one, rephrase those terms e.g. turn cheap mortgage around and use mortgage cheap too. Put yourself in your prospects shoes. What would they search for? How would they type it into Google? People don't always type a search phrase in a logical order.
For some quick avenues to explore check out these keyword goldmines
Plurals, domain names, serial numbers, product numbers, spelling errors, no spaces between the phrase words e.g. buywidget. Add .com or .net or .info etc, company names, company domain names, domain names and variations e.g. mydomain.com www.mydomain etc. Add superlatives e.g. best, cheap, cheapest, best buy. Competition site names, foreign words, US or UK spelling, product names, typo's, hyphens instead of spaces.
Be sure to separate out all these keywords in to different lists. You should be setting up different Ad groups for each. It's important to not just drop them all into one campaign together. Instead place all the typos in one Ad group all the plurals in another and so on. This will make for easietr targeting of your ad writing depending on your Ad groups keywords. Plus tracking results will be simpler.
Another great source for keywords are your site Log files trhey'll tell you exactly what keyphrase has been used to find your site by a visitor.
Search for your main keywords on the search engines and see what related terms pop up. Check the meta tags on your competitors site. Check the copy on your competitors site.
Do you see were this is going. I trust that gives you an idea of the power of going deep and wide on your keyword list building. Remember this is the first building block on which to lay down your PPC management.
About the Author
About the Author
Darren Yates is the creator of PPC Accelerator a software shortcut to finding highly searched keywords and editing, formating and managing them in one place fast. Watch the video demonstration - http://www.ppcaccelerator.com
Paid Search Advertising that Delivers Maximum ROI
By Ivana Giardi
Paid Search Advertising (also Pay-Per-Click, PPC) has gained a significant influence in the search engine industry over past couple of years. Whilst a traditional search engine optimisation still remains the online marketing strategy number one, more and more e-marketers discovering the potential of online advertising campaigns. Properly designed and managed, PPC campaign can deliver highly qualified visitors to your online shop.
1. Quick Overview
Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Search Engines are built on the similar principle as auctions. The difference is that you bid on keywords -- terms people use when they search for stuff on the internet.
The concept of PPC bidding is rather simple: you buy (= bid on) keywords that relate to your product. The highest bidder gets placed at the top of the search results, the second highest bidder gets the next listing and so on. Every time someone clicks through to your website, you pay the amount you bid on that particular search term.
Advertising with PPC search engines basically gives you three key advantages:
Cheap and Highly Targeted Traffic
With bidding on keywords that relates to your product or service, you actually pre-qualify the type of visitors you wish to attract. You determine how much you are willing to pay (bid) for the click and you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. This implies that PPC search engines can cheaply direct qualified visitors to your website.
Fast Exposure, Immediate Profits
Traditional search engines usually take few weeks (sometimes even months) to list your website. If you are having problems to get your website indexed by search engines or if you would like to get a quick results from the search engines then PPC is the best alternative. Most of PPC search engines will set your website live within a couple of hours (maximum few days) and the impact on your site traffic and sales is practically immediate.
Guaranteed Top Position
Search engine optimisation is the classic method of getting your website on the top of search results for free. Simply said, the process of optimisation involves choosing keywords that are directly related to your website and placing them meaningfully within your pages. However, as easy as this sounds, for an average webmaster this is usually a quite daunting task without any guarantee on the success. This again brings me to PPC as the best solution to gain high rankings on the search result list. Often, by spending just few cents per click, your website can get to the top three positions within 24 hours!
The best-known and most popular PPC Search Engines are Google AdWords (www.google.com/ads) and Overture (www.overture.com). Advertising with those two industry leaders will get your website lots of exposure and traffic. Furthermore, top 3 listings in Google AdWords and Overture appear on an extensive network of sites (including Yahoo!, MSN, AltaVista, Excite, and many others) so you can reach up to 80% of all active Internet users. However, at the same time be prepared that their top listings tend to be rather expensive and you need to pay quite a bit.
Generally, the more popular keyword you choose for bidding the higher is the price. You can start your bid from 1 cent per click and finish paying $5.00 (or more) for very competitive keywords.
2. Designing Successful PPC Campaigns
The golden rule of PPC bidding is: Attract highly qualified buyers and keep your bids as low as possible. Since you are paying for each single visitor landing on your website obviously you wish to maximize the effectiveness of your PPC campaign. Let's take a look at some basic guidelines to help you optimise your campaign and ensure your ROI:
Determine your bid cost
The calculation of the bid cost (also cost per click) requires a rather complicated formula. For the purpose of this article I mention just a baseline that helps determine how much you can afford to bid:
- Firstly, you need to know the conversion rate of your web site. That means how many unique visitors you need to close one sale. For example, if you need 50 visitors (= clicks) to close 1 sale then your conversion rate is 2%. If your bid is 10 cents per click than one sale has $5 of bidding cost.
- Secondly, you need to know your profit margin. If your profit margin is high enough to justify the cost you can consider increasing the bid and getting a higher position for your ad. This way you may increase the number of clicks through your website and acquire more sales.
- Finally, calculate if the extra sales justify the extra cost and adjust the bid accordingly.
Focus on highly targeted keywords
As mentioned earlier, PPC Advertising can deliver cheap and highly targeted traffic to your website. To use this advantage to your benefit it is important to choose wisely the keywords you wish to bid on. The key is to be specific. For example, instead of bidding on skin care you can consider bid on anti ageing herbal treatments. More targeted keywords attract more qualified buyers. It is easier to convert them into paying customers because they found exactly what they were looking for. This strategy is also a big money saver -- more specific keywords tend to be less expensive than the general ones everybody is biding on.
Customize your advertisements
You will attract more attention from qualified buyers by writing ads specifically for each of keywords you bid on. Speak directly to the type of visitor you want to serve. For example, instead of writing an ad for pies you can write home made meat pies.
When tailoring your ads to a specific audience, be also sure that you direct your visitors to a page on your website where it's easy for them to buy these items.
Use less popular PPC search engines
Overture and Google AdWords are clearly the PPC market leaders. However you can still benefit from the less popular ones such as:
- FindWhat http://www.findwhat.com
- Espotting http://www.espotting.com, (biggest PPC engine in UK and European market)
- 7search.com http://www.7search.com
- Kanoodle.com http://www.kanoodle.com
- Enhance Interactive http://www.enhance.com
- Sprinks http://www.sprinks.com
Bids on these less popular PPC search engines are much cheaper and you can purchase your listings for as little as one cent per visitor. Even though you may not get the same exposure as you would get with Overture and Google, you still generate a decent amount of traffic. And while you only pay for actual clicks to your website, you never waste your money.
Choose the best position for your advertisement
To be listed first on the search results is not always a smart move. It certainly helps to attract lots of visitors, but may cost you lots of money at the same time. People usually visit first 5 top listings before making a final decision about their purchase. Therefore, it is more profitable to have lower ranking for highly competitive keywords.
3. Managing PPC Advertising Campaign
You have designed a killer selling ad copy, chosen highly targeted keywords, calculated the maximum you can afford to bid on each of search terms and determined which spot on the search results you wish to secure. Yet, there is no guarantee that your ad always remains on your desired position.
The key to managing the desired position is to adjust your bids correctly in accordance to the PPC market conditions. It's like monitoring shares on the share market -- to get the best deal you need to constantly watch prices and react immediately to any change.
The main factor influencing the price of the bids and your position are your competitors. Let's make few examples of bidding strategies you can consider using in your PPC campaign: assuming, your maximum cost per click is $1.00 and your goal is to secure position #3 at the most effective cost.
(a) Maintain Target Position
Your aim is to target the position #3 however your ad appears on the position #10. Knowing that the current holder of the position #3 pays $0.51 per click you can improve your position and take over his place by bidding $0.52. This strategy sometimes tends to drive up the keyword prices so be aware you don't cross the limit of spending $1.00 per click.
(b) Remove Bid Gaps
Overture defines the bid gap as the difference between the amount you are currently paying for a click and the minimum you could be paying to still remain above your next highest competitor in the search results.
For example: You pay $0.70 per click and your next highest competitor pays $0.60 per click. You can pay just $0.61 per click and still be placed above your competitor. By closing this bid gap you save $0.09 per click which in 1,000 clicks is saving of $90!
(c) Control your Maximum Cost per Click
As mentioned earlier in this article, the calculation of your maximum bid cost (cost per click) requires you to collect a list of statistics about your website. Based on our assumption, you are willing to pay maximum of $1.00 per click. Therefore you should not pursue any positions where the bids are over your $1.00 limit. Wait till the price falls under $1.00 to prevent any possible losses.
To get the most accurate bidding results without having to baby-sit your advertising campaign, I would recommend relying on one of the automated bid management software available on the market today. In general, those tools constantly check your bids and adjust them accordingly to maintain your desired position so that you don't have to be alert 24/7.
The more sophisticated tools allow you to set your daily budget to prevent spending more than it is efficient for your business. Below I have listed the main features you should be looking for when choosing the bid management software for your campaign:
- The ability to create and identify targeted keywords and phrases that convert leads in sales.
- The ability to set the maximum amount your want to bid.
- The ability to fix bid gaps so you don't pay more money than is necessary
- The ability to set your desired position.
- the ability to compile comprehensive reports on your keywords, bidding cost, bid position and current bid for each keywords.
- The ability to monitor competitor's activity by checking competitors ranking and current bids.
If you would like to download a demo version of bid management software, there is one available for free at website http://www.keywordbidmaximizer.com/bidmaximizer. It will help you to better understand the whole process of designing and maintaining PPC campaigns so you always manage to cost-effectively allocate your budgets and increase your revenue.
Paid Search Advertising presents an excellent opportunity to immediately address your offers to the proper online audience. Focus on identifying highly targeted keywords that convert for your website. Calculate your bids so your sales justify the cost. This way you will maximize your return on investment and ensure your website's success with PPC advertising.
About the Author
Ivana Giardi is Marketing Director at Apex Pacific, developer of smart internet marketing solutions to help companies increase sales and profitability online. If you would like to learn more about Paid Search Advertising, visit Apex Pacific at www.apexpacific.com or email Ivana at marketing@apexpacific.com.
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