Search engine tips: first post in a series of PPC strategies.

Search engine tips: first post in a series of PPC strategies.

Over coffee this morning, it hit me like a caffeine freight train that lot's of people are embarking upon pay per click ads (like: Google, Yahoo, MSN search etc) and are not achieving the kind of success they deserve. In fact, some folks are so paralyzed by the thought of 'paying for clicks' that they have never even tested the PPC waters.

After a few more java jive gulps, I decided to launch a multiple week tips post on the topic. In fact, 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 destination page visitors 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 like handing the impoverished street corner beggar your credit card.

What follows here and continuing for the next few weeks are my 'insider secrets' for setting up and managing a pay per click campaign that won't keep you awake at nights with worry.

Pay per click tips for this week:

1. When cooking-up your keyword phrase list, use an extended "keyword discovery" phase. Your competition, like you, will do basic keyword research. You can only beat them if you take it to the next level, and that won't happen in the first day. Having a large number of targeted keywords in your campaign is a side effect of an extended period of brainstorming, discovery, research, or whatever you want to call it.
2. Not very wood with gords? There is a hidden target market of quality visitors who type in incorrect spellings of what they are looking for. Site owners often overlook this. In a recent 30 day period on a major search engine at least 108 people where searching for a 'buisness'? Hundreds more were searching for: 'vitiamins', 'vitimans' and even 'vitamens'... You can bid on misspellings and have very little competition on the search results page.
3. Assume that at least half your keywords will be rotten eggs, that is, no one will ever look for them and end up at your site. Because there is no extra cost to add as many keyword phrases as you can think up, treat them like biscuits and bake-up as many as you can... 100 or more keyword phrases for each destination page you list in any PPC search engine.

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 embarrassingly dismal 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 targeted visitors . The first thing I'd look at ( to improve your conversion ratio ) is your landing page. I've seen many a site that look like a one eyed hooker with fish-net pantyhose. Go figure.

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

Best of Luck with Homemade Gourmet !