Google, Yahoo, MSN search and Overture... Understanding pay per click advertising.

Google, Yahoo, MSN search and Overture... Understanding pay per click advertising.

Over the next few weeks, I plan to share what I consider the best tips for running a successful pay-per-click search engine campaign. I consider a 'successful' campaign one that generates blog or web page visitors uniquely targeted to your ad offer and visitors whose clicks don't cost you more money than their results merit.

Unless you have very deep pockets, or you're completely nuts, or you have a solid money-making conversion rate, paying big bucks for clicks that don't pan out is business suicide .

So how might you structure your PPC campaign to assure results without losing your shirt? What follows here and over the next few weeks are my tried and true techniques that can perhaps put your pay per click campaign on solid footing.

Tips for your PPC campaign:

1. Forget stupid characters. We are talking search engine listings (not eBay) so cool the clever punctuation it L@@KS stupid!!!!!!!! Don't make SOME words CAPITALIZED; it looks like you're shouting desperately for business. Respect the people who read your search engine listings.
2. People are by nature often interested in things like 'saving money', 'making money', 'curing something', 'striking a deal', and getting anything of value that is 'free'... but be careful. The addition of such self-interest phrases in your ad copy may skew your clicks upwards while leaving your sales flat. If you're tempted to try such phrases... test, test, test... while keeping an eye on your bottom-line.
3. Bluntness works: 'Refinance 4.5%', 'Viagra 39', 'No Interest VISA', etc
4. These are the type words that appeal to searchers: more information, complimentary, love, youthful, safe, new, benefit, gain, money, happy, glad, proven, guarantee, resource, fast, results, discover, how you, how to, your, yours, you'll, healthy, natural, magic, secret, comfortable, save, proud, secure, solution.

Keep in mind that if you run any PPC search engine ad campaign over a few weeks and you get zero or very low sales or sign-up results, the problem is most likely NOT the traffic you're generating from your ad, rather it is your site, your landing page, your product, your service, your price or some factor other than your PPC generated traffic . The first thing I'd look at (if results are low ) is your landing page. Fish just don't bite when the bait is no good.

For additional help with your pay per click ad campaign check out the articles linked in my previous post.

To make certain you don't miss this series of PPC tips, you might consider subscribing to my RSS feed.

Best of Luck with ACN Communication !