Creating an Effective Pay-Per-Click Campaign

Optimizing your website for the 'traditional' search
engines can be a daunting task, and one that many people
are either unable or unwilling to attempt. Fortunately,
pay-per-click search engines (PPC SEs) allow us to specify
exactly what key phrases we want to be listed under -- for
a price.

In brief, you simply "bid" on the key phrases you want.
Your bid indicates how much you're willing to pay for a
click on your link - in other words, every time someone
clicks your link, you pay 10 cents or whatever you bid
on that particular search term. The highest bidder gets
placed at the top of the search results, the second
highest bidder gets the next listing, and so on. It's
a quick way to get exactly the search terms you want.

Obviously you want to maximize the effectiveness of your
pay-per-click campaign since you're paying for traffic!
Here are a few tips to get you started:

__1. Know Your Website's Conversion Rate.

What percentage of unique visitors to your website
actually make a purchase? For instance, a website that
makes 1 sale for every 100 visitors has a conversion
rate of 1%.

Although the quality of visitors you get from a pay-per-
click search engine may be higher or lower than what you
normally get through other marketing means, knowing your
CR will give you a "baseline" to help determine how high
you're willing to bid.

For example, let's say your conversion rate is 1%. Based
on this, you need 100 clicks on your link to make 1 sale.
That's $10 if your bid is 10 cents/click. Figure out
whether or not your profit margin is sufficiently high
enough to justify the cost. If so, are you willing to
go spend even more to get your link displayed higher in
the search results and possibly generate more clicks and
sales? Will the additional sales justify the extra cost?

__2. Target the RIGHT Key Phrases.

The goal is to drive traffic and sales to your website.
Choosing the right key phrases is therefore critical: if
you choose a search term that no one uses, you won't get
any traffic. If you choose the wrong key phrase you may
end up with visitors who aren't really interested in
your products and services. Use Overture's Search Term
Suggestion Tool to help you research the appropriate
key phrases for your business:
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

__3. Qualify the Visitor Before He Clicks On Your Link.

You pay every time someone clicks your link, so make
sure he's a qualified visitor! Make good use of your
title and description to encourage visitors who are
specifically looking for a product or service like yours,
while discouraging people who are "just curious".

For instance, you may sell professional website templates
-- but some people are only interested in fr^e templates
they can use for personal websites or small projects.
These are the people you *don't* want to attract.

__4. Spend Time Writing Good Titles and Descriptions.

Create titles and descriptions specifically for each of
your search terms. They should "speak" directly to the
type of visitor you're catering to. For instance, if
you sell a variety of golf clubs, you might bid on
"used golf club", "discount golf club", and "ladies
golf club". Use each of these terms in the title and
description to help catch the prospect's attention.

__5. Send the Visitor Directly to a "Sales" Page.

Instead of linking to your home page where the visitor
may be presented with a variety of choices, link to a
page which asks the visitor to complete just one action.
That doesn't necessarily mean you have to send them to
a page where they're asked to make a purchase; you can
also direct visitors to your newsletter subscription
page, or a page where they're asked to answer a survey.

__6. Consider Using the Smaller PPC SEs.

Overture is the best-known and most popular of the
pay-per-click search engines. However, you can still
benefit from the smaller ones as well, such as 7Search
or FindWhat. Even though you may not get the same amount
of traffic as you would from Overture, your money isn't
"wasted" since you still only pay for actual clicks on
your link. In fact, the bids are usually far lower on
the smaller PPC SEs. Take advantage of the cheaper
traffic.

__7. Find the Bid Position that Offers the Best Value.

Many people try to get the #1 listing for their search
phrase. While the links in the top three positions may
get the most traffic, you can still get good traffic
from links on the first few pages. Some people even
argue that these visitors are more qualified -- they
took the time to read your link and are interested in
what you have to offer. They didn't just click your
link because it happened to be the first one.

Another thing to watch for are "bid gaps". As an example,
at the time of writing, Overture shows the following bids
for the search phrase "golf clubs":

Position #1 - 54 cents/click
Position #2 - 50 cents/click
Position #3 - 41 cents/click
Positions #4 and #5 - 40 cents/click
Position #6 - 33 cents/click

Most of the above bids are separated by several cents
per click... if you wanted position #3, you could bid
42 cents (be sure to read the bids above AND below the
position you want... otherwise, in this example you
could end up paying 49 cents/click for position #3!).
However, position #6 is available for a mere 34 cents.
That may not seem like much when you're just looking at
a single click, but that's a difference of $8 for every
100 clicks! Your savings can add up quickly. You have
to decide whether the extra cost is worth being higher
up in the search results.

Pay-per-click search engines may not be the cheapest way
to promote your online business, but they can be a very
effective part of your overall marketing plan. Remember
that it's not how much you spend that's so important,
but rather how much return you get on your investment!