A Conklin Company Independent Business Owner tip sheet for pay per click results.

A Conklin Company Independent Business Owner tip sheet for pay per click results.

Can you believe that 192 days have passed since the beginning of the year?

As if racing off for next year's cork popping celebration, 2005 is rapidly marching on, yet for may web entrepreneurs few visitors are marching over to see what's up. Are they marching to a different drummer or is it that your marketing drive is just not keeping the beat?

Do you market to women? It's important to note that the e-commerce gender gap appears to be widening, as more women opened their purse strings than men last quarter: the percentage of online purchases made by women reached 62 percent in the fourth quarter with men accounting for just 38 percent of transactions. (BizRate 2004)

With 173 days remaining in 2005, imagine how much different your business would be if you could get perhaps one "take action" type visitor to your site per week.

If you're asking "How do I get them to my site?" Maybe a little internet advertising is in order? Seems that's what a lot of successful online marketers are doing. And of all the methods out there, nothing seems to beat setting up a little search engine listing under keywords matching your niche audience and pay on a "per click" basis as they arrive at your site.

Of funds budgeted for search engine marketing this year, marketers said they would spend 51% on paid search ads, 6% on paid inclusion, 10% on contextual ads, 12% on search marketing agency fees for paid search, 11% on search marketing agency fees for optimization, and 11% on other areas of search marketing. (Source: Forrester Research 02/2005)

Every where you look you see stories and statistics that prove "it can be done". Yes, online sales are happening. Reports are continuing, sales are up, and the drum beats on.

The Web is gaining a larger share of the overall retail market. Total online sales in 2004 reached $69.2 billion, just shy of 2 percent of all retail sales in the country. (stats from: U.S. Department of Commerce 02/2005)

But I'm A Conklin Company Independent Business Owner, I'm certain it's almost impossible with what I do?

Maybe you are thinking that "some things" sell online but not your homecare & personal care. Nothing could be further from the truth. In most cases, it is not the product or service that hinders a sale, it boils down to traffic, strategy and page presentation. Whether you advertise using Google's AdWords, or do pay-per-click at Overture, Yahoo or MSN search, it's the campaign strategy that's important.

Over the past two weeks we started our series of PPC search engine tips. These tips will unquestionanly help your marketing campaign and hopefully put some of the statistics on your side. Without any further delay, I'll continue with my tips this week.

Pay per click tips for this week:

• 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.
• 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.
• Bluntness works: 'Refinance 4.5%', 'Viagra $39', 'No Interest VISA', etc
• 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.

In addition, I've written a many 'how-to' articles specifically to help get your internet marketing strategy on-track. You might find these internet marketing articles for Conklin Company interesting or helpful.

Check back next week for the next in this series of PPC tips... Until next week, happy PPC campaigning...


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