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

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

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 blog or web page visitors that are likely to respond to your ad offer and visitors whose clicks don't cost you more money than you have in your bank account :-)

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 suicide .

Is it possible to launch a PPC ad campaign that drives quality traffic without causing a heart attack? What follows below and over my next several blog posts are my personal campaign tips designed to put your PPC project on a solid road to success.

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.

Don't forget that if you run any PPC search engine ad campaign over a few weeks and you get no 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 generated traffic . The first thing I'd look at ( if things aren't going satisfactory) 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 The Traveling Vineyard !