A Quixtar independent business owner strategy for targeting prospects with pay-per-click.

A Quixtar independent business owner strategy for targeting prospects with pay-per-click.

Are you telling me that 192 days have passed since the beginning of this year?

Just as 2003 and 2004 marched forward in the blink of an eye, 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 advertising effort is just not keeping the beat?

Are you getting your piece of the pie? Retail sales by internet merchants will likely climb to over $109 billion for the current year. (Source: Shop.org/Forrester 05/2005)

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 "Please! Tell me the secret?" 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 a well managed pay per click search engine campaign...

Search engine marketing will grow by 33% this year, with growth slowing to 10% annually by 2010, when spending will hit $11.6 billion. (Source: Forrester Research 02/2005)

Every place you read you find 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.

According to Verisign (05/2005), The $4.4 billion racked up this year by online shoppers is a 24 percent increase over the same period last year. Fuelling the dollars spent was a 31 percent increase in the total number of transactions, up to 54.8 million this year. Monday May 2 was the peak day for online shopping during the Mother's Day period, as $473 million worth from 5.43 million transactions were reported.

But I'm A Quixtar independent business owner, is it more challenging for me?

Maybe you are thinking that "some things" sell online but not your health-fitness-wellness, telecommunications, financial services, books, food-beverage, house and kitchenwares. 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.

In my previous blog entries (last week and the week prior) 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 earlier blog posts you'll find the first and second installment of my PPC tips.

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 Quixtar interesting or helpful.

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Quixtar | PPC | pay per click | AdWords | marketing | search | retail statistics | marketing statistics | sales statistics