Getting The Most Out of Your
Pay-Per-Click and Keyword Campaign
Author: Shirley Kelly
Website: www.websitemarketing2.com
Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is quickly
becoming the fastest and most effective
way to reach the top search engine
rankings for given key words and
phrases. The concept is simple - we pay or
bid competitively, for the placement
within each search phrase.
While many of the search engines still
have free inclusion, this does not always
guarantee top placement. Keyword
saturation and search engine optimization
or the purposeful use of the keywords
often within the website content, is also
an unpredictable and often unsuccessful
method of gaining ranking.
PPC ads are similar to typical ads within
Search Engine Ranking Pages (SERPs), but
they are above free listings often
labeled Sponsored Sites. While some offer
image or banner advertising in the same
auction manner, most PPC ad services focus
on text ads with a website URL and brief
description of what the site offers.
Where each ad is placed depends on the
keywords and key phrases you select for
your ad campaign. Depending on the PPC
search engine, this fee may be as low as
$.01 going up based on popularity, demand
and exactly how much others are willing to
pay for high placement.
While advertisers pay only by the actual
clicks made, visibility is, in essence,
free. However there is an unspoken fee
associated with unpopular or rarely
clicked ads. Most Pay-Per-Click services
balance the ad click-through rate (CTR) or
how many times a viewer clicks the ad and
the bid amount were willing to pay for
each click when determining the ultimate
seniority of each ad. Because CTR does
play a significant role in placement, its
wise to bid higher at the outset to gain
significant clicks. It is also wise to
gain as much interest and click through
with each ad as possible to establish a
stronger and lower priced
ranking. Once this seniority is
established, the cost may be lowered
without harming the position quite as
much.
PPC advertising offers instant results,
good or bad. Once an ad is placed, it may
be online immediately (in the case of
Google AdWords) or within a week (in
the case of Overture), receiving clicks
and being rated immediately. Because of
this instant response, unpopular keywords
can be disenabled if not attended to fast
enough making it next to impossible to use
the keyword or phrase again.
Also, because PPC advertising is an
auction-style marketplace, SERP placement
changes constantly.
To meet these needs, many major PPC
advertising engines allow budget and
automatic bid set-up. This allows you to
put a maximum per day or per campaign
budget on clicks, after which the ad is
taken down until the budget is either
replenished or automatically rolled-over
to the next period. For instance, an
advertiser may place a budget of $100
dollars per day on a campaign. When clicks
meets this ceiling, ads stop until the
next day to use up the next $100. When
conducting a PPC ad campaign, remember to
keep the customer and their motivation in
mind, develop a list of keywords that
describe the products and services, target
keywords the customer will be searching
for and use specific phrases that clearly
define the offering. Veer away from broad
keyword matches, items we dont offer or
information that isnt available on the
website.
The current PPC marketing has more
advertising demand than available,
top-ranking spots. Its not yet known how
this demand will measure out or how
PPC services will address this concern in
the future.
Possibly the most important part of
developing PPC ad campaigns is finding the
right keyword phrases. To begin developing
a strong keyword phrase list, type the
initial ideas of what people would search
for when seeking the website in a new
Excel spreadsheet. Look through the site
and analyze the words that describe the
products or service. Review the website,
identifying words that would be of
most interest to the viewers. Check web
server logs to find the words visitors
currently use to find the site and what
pages they find most interesting.
Consider what action the customer should
take - find information, purchase
something, bookmark the site for latter
shopping or other positive advertising
result.
Use the Google Keyword Tool, Overture
Keyword Tool or WordTracker.com to find
other relevant searches around the initial
ideas. Its best practice to use the
longest search phrases possible, using
those no less than three words long. The
more specific, the lower the cost and the
more targeted traffic received. If selling
specific brands, use the brand names in
the keyword phrases.
Customers search during all phases of the
shopping cycle - from gathering data to
comparing prices and finally submitting
their credit card with the store. Use
keywords within each phase, considering
the highest conversion will come from the
audience ready to buy.
Each keyword phrase should be product or
service specific. Select the type of
keyword searches the ad will show under,
such as broad matches, exact matches,
negative matches and so forth. For
example, a bookshop may want to advertise
under the key word phrase car books, but
not show up for the search term Kelly blue
book cars. They have the option of
blocking searches with the term Kelly blue
book cars in the phrase.
Keyword selection is important to narrow
down the exact target audience and search
relevance. Additionally, the ads gain a
stronger click-through rate or CTR when
carefully targeted to the search traffic.
Ads with low CTR may be disenabled. Ads
with high CTR will gain higher ranking at
a lower bid cost. When we target exactly
what the consumer is looking for,
conversion rate increases significantly.
When searching online, potential customers
may type many variations of the keywords
including misspellings, plural form or
switched word orders. So use these in the
PPC ads also to gain the strongest and
broadest audience range. When we target
exactly what the consumer is looking for,
conversion rate increases significantly.
When searching online, potential customers
may type many variations of the keywords
including misspellings, plural form or
switched word orders. So use these in the
PPC ads also to gain the strongest and
broadest audience range.
Needless to say there are far more aspects
to Pay-Per-Click and Keyword Selection
than I can cover in this article but the
information provided here
should give you a good insight into
understanding how important it is to have
a good understanding of how the whole
Pay-Per-Click and keyword selection works.
About the Author:
Shirley Kelly is a full time internet
marketer who has written over 200 articles
in print and 5 published ebooks. To read
her latest ebook The Newbies Guide To
Internet Marketing visit her online at
http://www.websitemarketing2.com
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