A Tomboy Tools home consultant guide for targeting prospects with pay-per-click.

A Tomboy Tools home consultant guide for targeting prospects with pay-per-click.

Can you believe that 192 days have passed since the beginning of this year (2005)?

Indeed, 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 strategies for getting targeted visitors are 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 even a single "interested" visitor EVERY OTHER DAY to come to your site.

If you're asking "How can I achieve his goal?" 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 attracting targeted traffic by running little ads in the various search engines (like Google's AdSense program). Done correctly, you can get ongoing affordable traffic. And best of all, you can keep within a budget that makes sense when compared to the results you get from that traffic.

Where are people advertising these days? According to TNS Media Intelligence (03/2005) Internet advertising showed the strongest gain (21.4%), followed by outdoor (20.1%), cable TV (13.8%) and national syndication (15.8%).

In the U.S., Canada, UK or most any internet savvy country you'll discover 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 Tomboy Tools home consultant, isn't it a bit different selling what I sell?

Maybe you are thinking that "some things" sell online but not your home appliances & tools for women. 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:

• 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.
• 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.
• 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?
• 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?

For additional tips that might improve your pay per click ad campaign review the tips in my previous posts.

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 Tomboy Tools interesting or helpful.

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Tomboy Tools | PPC | pay per click | AdWords | marketing | search | retail statistics | marketing statistics | sales statistics