Pay-per-click tips (first in a series)

Pay-per-click tips (first in a series)

While contemplating the deep dark inner essence of my morning coffee, it hit me like a caffeine brick that lot's of people are running pay per click ads (like: Google, Overture, Yahoo, MSN search etc) and are not having the kind of results they might have expected. After several more java jive jolts, I decided to embark on a multi-week PPC tips post. What am I talking about? 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, site or landing page visitors well matched to your ad offer and visitors whose clicks don't cost you a fortune.

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 hara-kiri .

Is it possible to launch a pay per click campaign that produces results without causing a divorce? Maybe. What ensues here and over the upcoming weeks are my time tested strategies to put any pay per click campaign on a path toward affordable results.

PPC Tips:

1. Expand your keywords by asking your spouse, friends, neighbors, relatives, existing customers and strangers to look at your web page and offer their keyword suggestions. In this phase you cannot have too many cooks in the kitchen.
2. Put your biscuits in the oven and watch'em rise... That is, use web based 'keyword expanders' and research tools to expand your keywords beyond what you can come up with on your own.
3. Remember, searchers may type in something that describes your product, but more often than not they will be typing in words describing their problem. If your product or service solves, fixes, heals, masks or even distracts them from their problem, you want those keywords on your list.
4. "In-house" keywords (those used frequently by others in your industry or business) are often the most costly because lazy business owners don't often think beyond their own nose. The result is these limited keywords get bided-up sky high. Customers on the other hand seldom search using "in-house" keywords. Your goal is to find keyword niches popular with customers but less popular with your competition.

In the final analysis, you must understand what your goals are and pay close attention to all aspects of your campaign. It can be safely said 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 challenge 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 visitor traffic . The first thing I'd look at ( to improve your conversion ratio ) 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 Amazon Herbs !