PPC Advertising

Pay-Per-Click is one of the options you can choosefrom, along with developing an SEO, or search engineoptimization campaign. Both pay-per-click and SEO aretargeted to get your website placed as close to the top ofsearch engine results as possible. One of the differencesis that it takes minutes to set up a pay-per-click campaignversus months for a good SEO campaign.

Pay-Per-Click is a simple type of paid advertising thatmost search engines, including some of the largest ones,now offer. It requires a bid for a "per-click" basis, whichtranslates to your company paying the bid amount every timethe search engine directs a visitor to your site. There isthe added bonus that when a per-click site sends yourwebsite traffic, your site often appears in the results ofother prevalent search engines.

As with all marketing campaigns, there are advantages anddisadvantages. If you understand the process and monitoryour pay-per-click campaign frequently, it can be veryeffective. One of the greatest advantages is that you neverhave to tweak your web pages to change your position insearch engine results, as you must do in a typical SEOcampaign. What you do have to do in a pay-per-clickcampaign is pay a fee.

Another advantage is the simplicity of the pay-per-clickprocess. You just bid and you're up and running. It doesn'tdemand any specific technical knowledge, though the moreyou know about search engines and keywords, the easier -and more effective - the process will be.

The downside is that pay-per-click is essentially a biddingwar. A higher bid than yours will lower your position onsearch engine results. This means that you will have toraise your bid to regain your position - which canobviously become quite expensive, especially if you arebidding on a popular keyword.

In order to determine if pay-per-click is a cost effectiveform of marketing for your business, you must do somecomputing to figure out how much each visitor to your siteis worth. You can compute this value by dividing the profityou make on your website over a given period of time by thetotal number of visitors for that same time period. Forexample, if your site made $5,000 in profits and there were2,5000 hits, each visitor would be theoretically worth 50cents. The basic formula is profits divided by visitors.

The figure of 50 cents per visitor is the point at whichyour business breaks even. The idea, of course, is to showa profit, not to merely cover your costs. Therefore, youare aiming at a figure less than 50 cents per click.

Be aware that the most popular keywords often costconsiderably more than 50 cents a click. The only wayaround this is to bid less for these phrases or you will bepaying too much for each individual hit.

The key (pun intended) to success is to learn everythingyou can about search engine keyword research. The good newsis there isn't a limit to the amount of keywords you canadd to your bid because additional keywords do not addadditional cost. This translates into a lot less hassle foryou because there is no need to optimize your site to indexa particular set of keywords.

Obviously, some keywords are much more effective thanothers are, but they will not cost you anything except timeto set-up your account in your pay-per-click bid. Of thepopular search engines that offer pay-per-click, one calledOverture provides an online tool that will give you thedata on how often particular keywords are entered intotheir search engine. They also offer suggestions forkeywords after you enter a description of your site.

In pay-per-click, this written description is crucial. Youmust understand that the object of your description is notto generally attract visitors, but to be as specific aspossible so that only those visitors who are likely to buyyour service or product go to your site. You must useexpert marketing copy to guarantee that your description isboth precise and enticing to attract the most idealcandidates to your site. This description is your mostpowerful tool to insure that your bid is profitable.

Another essential element of pay-per-click advertising isthat you constantly monitor your bid. It is very importantthat you bear in mind that the results of the top searchengines providing pay-per-click advertising, which areOverture and Adwords Select, usually appear on otherpopular search engines. Because of this, the competitionfor top ranking is intense, and very often you will findthat the bidding price balloons too high for pay-per-clickto yield a profit.

If this happens, it is advisable to withdraw your bid onthat particular keyword and try another one. Remember: whenyou pay too much per click to make a profit, you are inessence losing the bidding war.

Since losing is not acceptable, you must have a plan inplace to closely track the effectiveness of your keyword.

It is advisable to monitor your keywords on at least amonthly basis.

Not only is careful monitoring important, but the analysisof visitor behavior can produce invaluable knowledge aboutconsumer motivation, habits, and trends. Expert monitoringand consumer analysis is essential to your overall businessneeds, and will also insure that your pay-per-clickcampaign is a success.