PPC Advertising - The Ins and Outs

There is tons of talk all over the Internet about Pay-Per-Click Advertising. Some swear by it and others say it is waste of your time. While Pay-Per-Click Advertising can be hard to grasp at first, it can be very beneficial to your business if you learn how to use it correctly.

The concept of Pay-Per-Click Advertising is that you come up with "keywords" that you feel will bring visitors to your site. Once you have your keywords, then you will have to bid on them to get a position with that Pay-Per-Click Provider. Depending on the amount of your bid, will determine where you "rank" with that particular keyword. When a person searching on the Internet enters one of your keywords and finds your site on a page linked to this keyword, then they have the option to click on your site. Once they click on your site, you are charged for one click at the amount you have as your bid for that particular keyword.

Sounds simple enough – right?! - Not so fast! There are many factors that come into play when you are setting up your campaign with any number of pay-per-click providers. There are some major factors to take into account and spend some time researching before just throwing in some keywords and walking away. These factors are critical to the success of your campaign.

1.Use keywords that are relevant to your site. When a person enters a keyword in the search engine, they expect to be brought to a list of sites containing exactly what they are searching for at that time. If they are brought to your site on Dogs, where you have used the keyword "animals" and they are looking for Cats, then they are not going to be satisfied and will quickly leave your site. You will get charged for that click because they did indeed click on your site, but NO SALE!

2.Go to the search engines yourself and put in the "keywords" you have decided to use for your campaign. Look at the types of sites that are brought up. This will help you to better determine if that keyword would be effective.

3.Many campaigns let you use "negative keywords". The purpose of negative keywords is to narrow down the search. You can enter "animals" as a keyword for your "Dog" site but you would want to use "negative keywords" such as cats. That will mean if a person puts in the word "animal - cats" then your site will not be listed under their options, as you have told the provider in your campaign that you do not have anything about cats on your site.

4.You can set a daily budget – this is an amount you want to spend each day for this particular campaign. If you are just starting with Pay-Per-Click Advertising, it is smart to set a low daily budget until you learn the ins and outs of how this works. Many of us are hands-on users and need to actually try a program out to learn it but you don't want to lose tons of money during your learning curve phase. As you become more comfortable with the way it all works and feel confident with your keyword list, you can increase that budget.

5.Refill amount or deposit – Most providers require that you keep some kind of balance in your account to cover what you have set as your daily budget. Some will require a minimum deposit to get your started, while others will request that your refill amount be 3 times that of your daily budget. For instance, if you set up a daily budget of $20, you would have to have $60 in your account balance. Once you drop below that $60, then the provider will debit your credit card for another $60 to refill your account.

6.Pausing a campaign – be aware that you can pause a campaign at any time. If you know you are not going to be able to monitor your account and/or it's a tight week, pause your account so you are not spending money during that time. You can resume activity when you are ready.

7.Being approved – most Pay-Per-Click Providers will require you to complete all of your information and then will have you submit your ad and keywords for approval. Be sure to read through that particular providers rules before submitting your ad and keywords. They all have different regulations and by knowing what is and is not allowed for that certain provider will save you a lot of time and frustration setting up your campaign.

8.Tracking – this is probably the number one factor in whether a campaign is successful or not. You should track your clicks and where they are coming from on a daily basis. Keywords that are getting tons of clicks and producing sales are obviously ones you want to keep bidding upon, but then again, you may have a great keyword but you cannot compete (money wise) with the competition to get a high enough rank for visitors to choose your site. This is when you have to become creative with your keywords. Another key factor is where are these clicks coming from and are they producing sales. You can look at reports from your "counter" provider to see how your visitors found your site. Be aware of tons of clicks from one url, check into it and make sure these are legitimate clicks.

9.Another important factor ~ don't give up on a provider or your campaign too quickly. Most of the providers are very willing to work with you on your campaign and making it successful. Contact a representative and discuss your campaign and objectives before declaring "this one does not produce for me".

10.Rank ~ We know that when a visitor searchs for a particular keyword such as "work from home" that they are going to get page after page of available sites. Your rank is the page your site is listed on and therefore is critical to someone actually gaining access to your site. Not everyone stops at the first page so it is not absolutely necessary to have your ad appear on page 1 (although it would be nice), but you need to consider the fact that page 200 probably won't get you much action. Pay close attention to these statistics and adjust your campaign, and keywords according for best performance.

The bottom line is to understand how Pay-Per-Click Advertising works before assuming throwing up an ad with a few keywords is going to bring tons of traffic to your site.