Tips for Successful Pay-Per-Click Campaigns

by: Eddie Machaalani

Introduction Pay per click (PPC) is by far one of the easiest and quickest methods of driving targeted, consistent traffic to your website. While this may seem like a daunting method of advertising for some, it's actually quite easy and can end up becoming that one marketing method that you can't live without.

What I'd like to do today is provide some tips and techniques that I personally use when creating and monitoring PPC ad's. Hopefully these tips will help you in your future marketing endeavors.

Experimenting With Different Search Engines

There are many PPC search engines, with some being better than others. The top two are Google and Yahoo, which was previously known as Overture. It's a good idea to start your PPC campaigns with a small budget, spreading it out over a few different search engines to experiment and see where your target market may be lurking.

Generally speaking, I've found Google Adwords is better for more technically orientated products or services, including software, hardware, web design etc. Yahoo, on the other hand, is better for general consumer products, including insurance, toys, music etc.

What I wrote in the previous paragraph is very general, and you should analyze your campaigns carefully to see where they are performing their best. We'll discuss this in detail a little later in the article.

Selecting the Right Keywords

The keyword selection process is probably the most important of all when it comes to creating your PPC ad's. You'll need to select keywords that are specific to your product or service offering, but you need to be careful not to select keywords that are extremely popular, as this may deplete your PPC funds sooner than expected.

The keyword selection process begins by asking yourself just one question:

"If I was searching for a product just like mine, which words or phrases would I search for?"

Using your answer(s) to this question as your base, you can then use a thesaurus and common sense to start building your keyword list with plurals, synonyms, similar words, etc.

To see which keywords your competitors are using, simply try searching for them. If you see a PPC ad along the side for your competitor, then note that keyword down and add it to your list.

Another way of coming up with great keywords is to use the overture search suggestion tool: http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

Type in a set of keywords and it will list similar keywords, including the number of times that keyword has been searched for on Overture (Yahoo) in the last month!

There's often a fine line between selecting keywords that are either too specific or keywords that are too general. Try to keep away from these, as they can often result in wasted PCP funds.

A typical example of this would be an ad that I created recently for our latest product, TrackPoint, which -- not coincidently -- is an internet marketing return on investment (ROI) tracking tool. Although the product is heavily geared towards internet marketing, using such a broad term would have made it virtually impossible to compete with the other advertisers.

The term "internet marketing" is searched for 825,674 times per month on Overture alone. Combined with the huge number of different advertisers that target this keyword, the top bid for "internet marketing" on Google AdWords is $13.84 per click! With an average of 240 clicks per day, a single day of advertising alone would cost $505!

Now, unless you have an extremely high conversion rate of visitors to sales, or you're selling a high priced item that usually has a high customer acquisition cost, I suggest targeting more specific keywords. Not only will this decrease your overall competition with other advertisers, but it will also increase the chances of turning your newly found web site visitors into customers.

Back to my earlier example, I chose to be specific with my keywords. One keyword was "ROI tracking", which is searched for 1,828 times per month on Overture and has a much cheaper top bid. This keyword is also more targeted to the product I was marketing, meaning that a large percentage of people clicking on my ad should turn into customers.

It's also helpful to note that taking the top bid is not always necessary, and anywhere in the top 5-10 can generate great leads. This really does come down to budget and analysis.

Attracting People to Your Ad

Now that we've selected our keywords, we need to get those searching to click on our ad, which in turn will result in them clicking through to our web site and potentially purchasing our product.

One of the simplest ways to get peoples attention is to use their search keywords in the title of your PPC ad. This has been proven to increase click-thru rates on ad's by over 50%.

Why? Simple. If the potential customer is searching for "ROI Tracking" and the title of a PCP ad begins with "ROI Tracking", then their attention will be grabbed instantly. He or she doesn't need to know much else, other than that the PPC ad is catered specifically for him or her.

One thing to keep in mind is that you can sometimes create a more relevant title by combining your different keywords into one PPC ad. For example, I could have easily used something like "ROI Tracking PHP Script" as the title of my ad, which effectively would have decreased my click-thru rate, but definitely caters my ad more to a specific audience. Once again, this comes down to analysis and adjustment.

Another important technique to attract attention to your ad is to differentiate yourself from your competitors. In our particular case, the majority of our competition offer hosted solutions, whereby they manage the software on their servers in return for monthly or per traffic fees.

Our product caters to a different audience, those that want more control over their software, as well as those not wanting to pay monthly fees. So, in this example, I would make the title of my ad "Pay no monthly or per traffic fees".

Next -- and this is where experimentation is extremely important -- we need to create a description for our PPC ad that will attract the potential customer and let them know that our product is exactly what they are searching for. To do this, I start my ad's description with "Track PPC, campaigns & search".

Finally, it's good practice to add a "Call to action" at the bottom of your ad. If you're not familiar with this term, its usually an instruction to tell the person to do something, such as "Click here to view a demo", "Download Now", etc.

Marketing experts seem to agree that the average human needs to be prompted to click on an ad or take action, so we'll add this line to the end of our PPC ad's description:

"Track PPC, campaigns & search. Try demo!"

Reducing Click-Thru's

Sometimes it's important to reduce the number of clicks your PPC ad is receiving. This could be because you are attracting people who are only after free products/services, or even the wrong target market.

The two quickest ways to reduce click-thru's are to make the description of your ad more targeted and to add the price of the product to the ad.

Making the description more targeted (as I've discussed above) can reduce your overall click-thru rate, but potentially increase the likelihood of a click resulting in a purchase.

In my earlier example, by adding the words "PHP script" to the description, we are effectively filtering out those looking for a hosted solution, downloadable software or even those with a server that isn't capable of running PHP scripts.

We also increase the targeting of our ad because we now know that the majority of those clicking on the ad are looking for a PHP script, which is exactly what our product is.

Secondly, by adding the price of the product you are selling to the end of the ad, you instantly eliminate those looking for free products, and target those willing to purchase your product or service.

Tracking Your Clicks and Conversions

The fundamental core of a successful advertising campaign -- whether it be a PPC ad, banner ad or even newspaper ad -- is knowing whether or not your ad's are actually converting into sales or not.

If your ads aren't making you money then you're more that likely better off saving your advertising dollars and adjusting your ad's or using your marketing budget elsewhere in your company.

Both Google and Overture have built in tracking and conversion tools that you can use to get a holistic view of your current PPC ad campaigns. You can even use external tools which let you add conversion code to your website to tell you exactly which of your ad's are converting into sales and which aren't. This is often referred to as knowing your ROI or Return on Investment.

We need to know exactly how much money we are making per dollar spent on every PPC ad. If the ROI is positive and we are making more money than we are spending, then the ad is working and we can use this knowledge to further improve our other ad's or increase ad spending for that particular ad/set of keywords.

If, however, our ad's are costing us more than they are returning, then we can reduce our spend, change our approach, or remove these ad's altogether. It's a rather simple formula, but frustratingly ignored by many advertisers.

You must track your ads if you want to succeed with any form of Internet advertising. You should also constantly monitor and adjust your ads according to how they are performing, your return on investment, etc.

Conclusion

Hopefully I've provided you with a clear insight into PPC advertising and techniques that you can use to improve your advertising campaigns. It pays -- pun intended -- to do your research and understand your target market, because the rewards can sometimes be much more than you expected.

About the author:
Eddie Machaalani is the Interspire marketing and project manager. He's most recently been kept busy helping out with the interface design for Interspire's ROI and Conversion Tracking Application, TrackPoint. To see how TrackPoint can help boost your revenue, go here: http://www.interspire.com/trackpoint

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10 Adsense Tips for Maximum Click Through Rates.

by: Christos Varsamis

1) You should make your Adsense ads look as a part of your web page. They shouldn't look like an Ad. People are negative to advertising. They search the internet for content not ads. Especially Banners have a less of 0,5% response. Their days are over. Imagine if you have an Adsense ad looking like the typical Banner with different colors. It will not be profitable.

2) Text ads are better than image ads. Like before, people are more responsive to text than images. In a way it is considered as a part of the online document and is more clickable.

3) No Border ads. One of the best tricks is to erase the borders of Adsense ads and make them again having the same color with your website's background.

4) No other advertisements. The first reason is to be legitimate according to Google's Rules and the second more practical reason is that you do not want to distract your visitor's attention and go somewhere else without clicking your Adsense ads.

5) Placement. Even if you have the best Ad, people will not respond if they don't see it instantly. The best place to see the ad is the top of your web page and the next is aside
your document's text. Visitors will click it more frequently since it will look like your text.

6) Traffic. Try to use legitimate ways of traffic. Some people use Google Adwords and other Pay per Click search engines. The problem here is to search very carefully for the right niche and keywords in order to make your campaigns profitable. Other ways is link popularity techniques like link exchange directories, software or even mass blog submission techniques. Don't use link farms and classifieds for that, because search engine's algorithms are extremely clever and they will ban your listings.

7) Do not rely on one website. Yes you can make money with one website but try to make as more as possible.

8) Relevant content is King. Articles are one of the best tactics to create huge websites that will be crawled by search engine's robots. Don't forget search engines exist to provide relevant content at first. One excellent resource to automate your article directory procedure is http://www.articleequalizer.com .You can create an article database in minutes which otherwise is time consuming and it would take you a week!

9) Use site maps. Google's site maps visit your site and crawl it much sooner that any other submission process. More information is here: http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps

10) Relevant ads. It's one of the most important factors for Adsense success. If the internet user can't find relevant ad in your page he or she won't click the ad. Would you act differently? So it's critical to create relevant resource for your web page. In order to do that, you must do the following steps.

First the file must be saved with the appropriate name for example: Golf-Secrets.html if your article is about golf. So the webpage will be:
www.yoursitesname.com/Golf-Secrets.html

Second thing you must change is your title tag. For example:
Title Golf-Secrets article title

Third is the heading. The first sentence must have this heading:
12 Golf secrets

About the author:
Christos Varsamis is a Business writer, creator and owner of the http://www.settinglifegoals.com& http://www.fastprofitbiz.comSign for your 7 day FREE e-course " How to TRACE a Legitimate Business Opportunity.”

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SEO Advertisting & Pay Per Click PPC

by: daniel chow

Advertising can be an easy way to break into the internet but there are many downsides to it. Unless you are running a community based site, have a site offering very unique content, a valuable service or product the traffic usually only comes as long as your paying for it. Of course ad campaigns can also be very expensive to run and maintain so you need to be sure your squeezing everything you can out of it. You should only proceed with a ad campaign if you are positive your site is the best it can be, otherwise you may just be pouring money away. There are thousands of companies on the internet who offer to provide you with ad campaigns, many of which never deliver, do not let any of these points put you off advertising.

If you want quality traffic with affordable prices you are recommended to stick with the major search engines and their partners. Google Adwords, Overture and MSN are all well respected companies which will deliver you the best traffic. All of the forementioned websites use pay per click systems which can be perfect as they drive traffic with keywords you specify directly at your site, these advertisers are all interlinked with the main search engines so you should expect to get the most widespread sections of the population from them. Because they have the traffic numbers to support ad campaigns there can sometimes be bidding wars on popular keywords, I advise you to stay away from popular keywords and do your research. Overture provides a free Keyword Selector Tool which can help you find out how much traffic similiar keywords recieve each month, these are usually a lot cheaper and still provide the same high quality traffic.

As I mentioned before advertising wont necessarily mean a good flow of traffic after you stop paying, other routes of advertising can mean you get listed in a search engines immediately for a set fee. Yahoo offers the ability to pay for a index within their search engine or directory, although your site still needs to abide by the same rules as other sites it gives you the opportunity to get indexed immediately within the search engine, a more subtle way of advertising power. Alternatively you can find quality sites that are related to yours on Sitepoint.com and WebHostingTalk.com who may be willing to put a one way link up for a nominal fee.

You may find websites on the internet offering "banner exchanges", "free traffic" and other such promises, I wouldent look at them twice unless you want to lose out. The traffic they send you is of the worst quality, many of these websites operate bots, own networks of link farms and even pay people to visit your site. This of course means that no one being referred from these sites are actually interested in your content or services, in worst case scenarios you may even end up being banned from search engines due to these malicious sites. Even if they are reputable companies it is hard to judge whether they will work for you, many of the smaller search engine companies simply do not get the traffic to give you value for money.

About the author:
Article by www.SEOAssistance.com
SEO Advertising & PPC
copyright? www.SEOAssistance.com

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Adwords, Affiliate Marketing And Cashing In On The Xmas Spend

by: Darren Yates

It's going on right now. The biggest Xmas spend online ever. It stands to reason that each year more and more people get online. More of the people online begin using their credit cards to shop online and more of these shoppers realise the great convenience that shopping online offers. So they start to spend more on a wider variety of products and / or services.

So when Xmas comes around it makes more sense than ever to do the shopping online from the comfort of their home. They avoid the crowds, the traffic, stay in the warm, comparison shop, read online reviews and then get exactly what they want and get it cheaper too.

You can tap into this huge spending surge right now by utilizing Google Adwords and Affiliate schemes.

Things have changed at Google HQ when it comes to Adwords you can no longer link directly to an affiliate site.

You may now wonder how you can make any money with Adwords and affiliate schemes.

As it goes the change in policy at Adwords had zero effect on the most profitable affiliate promoters. In fact for the smart ones and even the not so smart ones it actually increased their profits!

How? well it's simple.

The smart affiliates didn't send their prospects directly to an affiliate site anyway. Instead they constructed their own site on which they presold the product or service they were promoting. By presell I mean they softly emphasised the benefits of the product, showed mouth-watering pictures, made comparisons to other similar products to emphasise the benefits of the product they were promoting. In essence they wrote a favourable, and what appeared to be an unbiased review.

You can do exactly the same. You don't need a full site just a single landing page will do. You could even have a page for each affiliate product you're promoting on the back of one of your existing sites.

The single biggest thing to keep in mind when you do this is that you must not go for the hard sell. Try to be unbiased and if there are bad points to the product you're promoting via Adwords be sure to mention them.

In fact I'd go so far as to say, make sure you list something you're not happy with.

I know that sounds nuts but it will give your review much more credibility than if you gushed overly enthusiastically about how great this product is.

Mention a bad point or a minor irritation but then be sure to follow with a major good point or qualify why exactly you didn't like this one feature.

What should you promote?

You need something either with a good conversion or a high commission. Preferably both. You also need to find low cost keywords and lots of them if possible. That goes for anything you promote really.

Consider what people will be buying this Xmas. What has the largest price tag but is still in high demand?

Ideally stay away from the obvious e.g. ipods, Xbox's etc there will be too much competition and so to high a click cost.

In conclusion the method of promotion mentioned above has served many people well and in fact resulted in, believe it or not, an annual six figure income for more than one lucky affiliate marketer.

Get your Adwords Xmas campaigns running now. Each day you hold of on starting your Xmas Adwords campaigns you loose money.

About the author:
Darren Yates is the owner of the unique Pay Per Click Software PPC Accelerator that will source, build, edit, format and manage massive Pay Per Click keyword lists fast through one easy to use interface.

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5 Secret Tips to Effective Pay Per Click Advertising

by: Jan Peterson

Yes, pay per click advertising will cost you but if you do it right, it should make you money. If you are running pay per click advertising campaign and more money is going out than coming in, something is not right. Here are 5 steps to targeting the right keywords and minimizing costs.

Are your keywords too broad?

Let's just say you have developed an amazing diet drink that is safe, effective, tasty and will guarantee that people will lose 15 lbs in 30 days. You know you have a product that is a winner and are excited about marketing it on the World Wide Web. However, you are relatively new to the Web and pick keywords that are too general and expensive like 'dieting' or 'weight loss'. Not only are you perhaps disappointed by your PPC advertising results but it will likely be draining your bank account. This is why niche keywords are so important. Look at bidding on keywords such as 'weight loss supplement' or 'weight loss drink'. Go to Overture or Word Tracker and find keywords that are more niche oriented and not so competitive.

Is your ad dull or attention getting?

It is worthwhile to spend some time learning about effective copy writing. It could be the difference between mediocrity and success. You want to know how to get someone's attention. Unfortunately saying "I have the best diet drink on the planet" doesn't work. You have to motivate and inspire people to take their time to look at what you have to offer. And, in pay per click advertising you have to do it in very few words. This can be a challenge. Learn the words that sell or attract or grab someone's attention like "Must see", "Quick results", "New…", "The truth…", "Groundbreaking…", "Instant…"

Double Check your URL!

Sounds like a no-brainer but many times people either misspell their URL or send someone to their home page instead of the page that directly relates to their question. In other words, you may have a website that is dedicated to weight loss but in your pay per click advertising, you want to direct them specifically to your diet drink. So, you would want your URL to read http://www.myweightlosssite.com/dietdrink.html. There is nothing more frustrating to the website visitor than having to go hunting for the information. Your job is to make it easy to find and informative. If they have to look long, they will leave. These are dollars lost to you.


What is your competition doing?

It is likely that your competitors who have a high PR (page rank) and continue to advertise, are doing something right. Learn from those who are successful. While the differences may seem subtle to you, in the World of PPC advertising a word or sentence can discourage or invite a potential website visitor.

What should my title be for my PPC ad ?

Plain and simple use the keyword that is being searched on. Don't get fancy or creative here. If someone is looking for diet drink then your ad title is 'diet drink'.
Give the website visitor what they want.

The bidding war is on

Try your best not to get caught in the bidding war game. There are plenty of ways to drive traffic to your site without spending a fortune. General keywords will always have high prices like 'dieting.' Don't fall for the trap. Most refined keywords will have lower priced bids but are excellent because they will target your traffic. A Website visitor may only be looking for diet recipes and dislike diet drinks. They are not your customer. Same for the website visitor who may want to tone-up while they are dieting. The more specific you can target your market, the better you will do.

Two other tips: If all the bids are around 25 cents and the lead bid is at $5.00, you know someone is trying to own the number 1 position. If you want to have fun bid $4.99 and they will get nailed $5.00 for every click and you will only pay 26 cents if they click on your ad. Warning though: if you want to play this game, keep an eye out so they don't drop their bid. I sometimes do this as a temporary measure to bring someone back to fair playing grounds.

Secondly, keep any eye on all of your bids. People do change what they are willing to bid on any given keyword or search term. I do an overview every few days.

The test results are back

One last key to good pay per click advertising is testing your ads. You can set up two different campaigns and rotate them for the same period of time. What you might learn could surprise you and benefit your bank account!

Jan Peterson founder of http://www.goldstarreview.com researches and reviews business opportunities Over 400 FREE reports available. Successful e-book with reprint rights also available.

About the author:
Jan Peterson founder of http://www.goldstarreview.comresearches and reviews business opportunities Over 400 FREE reports available. Successful e-book with reprint rights also available.

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