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

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

If you follow my posts for the upcoming 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, site or landing page visitors well matched 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 busines seppuku .

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.

Search engine campaign tips:

1. Sometimes people type in web addresses in those search boxes! So bid on those if the search engine allows it: 'www.website.com', 'website.com', 'http://website.com' and every combination full or partial you think a searcher might actually type.
2. Match up keywords with words in your ad copy. Even though a 'spa', a 'hot tub', and a 'whirlpool' might mean the same thing in your mind, if a searcher types in 'hot tub' and your listing says: "Relax and save in your new Spa", you will miss out on many interested customers.
3. Think negative... yes, people search for herbs that can kill, plastic surgery pitfalls, mlm scams and sundry other peculiar things. Invite them to explore your related listing. Do you offer cosmetics or skin car as an alternative to plastic surgery? Is you mlm a beacon of light in a sea of seemingly dubious scams?
4. Get creative with interest spikes in the news. 'Mad Cow' might be a great keyword for your all vegetarian product line. The 'SARS' outbreak might have generated millions of searches that your 'immunity booster' could have benefited from (just don't make any false claims). And where were all the bra ads when a gazillion people typed in 'Janet Jackson' after the 2004 Super Bowl surprise?

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 unsatisfactory 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 visitor hits. The first thing I'd look at ( when faced with dismal results ) is your landing page. Your landing page must be the 'pearl' in your sea of PPC campaign tools. Anything less and you might as well be shucking oysters.

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

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

Best of Luck with Quixtar !