Pay-Per-Click Tips for Attracting Traffic

By Cory Rudl – Entrepreneur.com

Pay-per-click (PPC) search engines can be a powerful, instant source of qualified traffic for your website?provided you do your homework and invest a bit of time in managing your campaign. In fact, many website owners who’ve mastered keyword targeting and know the “insider” bidding strategies tell me that more than 90 percent of their traffic comes straight from the PPC search engines!

So I’m going to show you the strategies and tools these folks are using?so you can duplicate their success. I’m going to explain hot new targeting options and bid-management tools being offered by the PPC search engines that you can use to increase your traffic while keeping bidding costs low.

A lot of people think the only way to develop a successful pay-per-click campaign is to get the highest ranking with a popular keyword in the top two PPC search engines, Overture and Google AdWords.

Now it’s true that a top-ranked ad with either of these two industry giants will guarantee your site a lot of exposure?as long as you’re bidding on keywords that a substantial number of people are searching for. The problem is, you often have to pay more for these No. 1 spots. And in the case of the more competitive keywords, this can means bids of $1.50 to $5.00 (or more!) per click.

If you want to be successful with the PPC search engines, you need to bid on keywords that attract clicks from “qualified” buyers (as opposed to “tire kickers” who’ll drive your costs up) while keeping your bids as low as possible.

Here are seven tips that will help you accomplish that:

1. Figure out what you can afford to bid. This might sound obvious, but it needs to be said: Don’t bid more than you can afford! A lot of businesses make this mistake.

Before you pay for advertising of any sort, calculate the value of a single visitor to your site. Once you know what one visitor is worth, you’ll know the maximum amount you can afford to pay per click.

2. Being “No. 1″ isn’t always best. You don’t always need to be ranked No. 1 for certain keywords to attract visitors. Sure, it helps if your ad appears in the top 10 results. But people click on listings featured on the second and even third page of results for competitive keywords.

So run some tests. Vary your bids so that your listing appears higher and lower on the page and see what effect the ranking has on your profits. You may actually find that for more costly keywords, a slightly lower ranking is more profitable.

3. Bid on low-cost variations and common misspellings of particular keywords. Frequently, you’ll see businesses bidding as much as $5.00 per click for popular keywords?while nobody is bidding on common misspellings and similar keywords that cost just pennies per click. Use Wordtracker to locate keywords that relate to your business and are frequently searched by your market, but that none of your competitors are bidding on.

4. Bid on highly targeted phrases with less traffic. Rather than bid on a handful of “general” keywords, which tend to be more expensive because they get the highest number of searches, bid on dozens?or even hundreds?of highly “targeted” keywords, which tend to be cheap. For example, instead of bidding on “pet supplies,” you might bid on “red dog leash,” “oversize dog kennel,” and “cat toys with bells.” You’re sure to see better sales conversions on the more targeted keywords because they attract more qualified buyers. And since no one is bidding on these keywords, your advertising costs associated with this traffic are extremely low.

Another benefit of this strategy is that you can direct these qualified visitors to a page that gives them exactly what they’re looking for. In the above example, your listing for the keyword, “oversize dog kennel” could link directly to your dog kennel catalog page, rather than to just the home page of your pet supply store.

5. Bid on keywords in the lesser-known PPC search engines. Overture and Google are the PPC industry leaders, but some of the smaller PPC search engines are worth checking out as well. The most popular ones are:

# Findwhat
# Kanoodle
# Enhance Interactive
# LookSmart
# Espotting (for the UK & Europe)

These engines won’t get you the same exposure you might get with Overture and Google AdWords, but you can still generate a respectable amount of traffic with them. And best of all, they’re much cheaper.

6. Create separate ads for each product or service you sell. This is an extremely effective strategy, but very few businesses are using it: Write ads specific to each keyword and phrase you bid on. For example, instead of writing an ad for “sporting goods,” write one for “quality leather soccer balls,” another for “discount ladies’ tennis shoes,” and so on.

These customized ads will attract more attention (and clicks!) from qualified buyers. And of course, you’ll be able to convert more of these visitors to buyers if you direct them to a page on your site with the exact product or service they’re searching for.

7. Get listed in relevant specialty PPC search engines. Did you know that there are specialty PPC search engines that target different markets such as brides, pet owners, antique collectors, car owners and so on?

Check out PayPerClickSearchEngines.com to see if there are any relevant to your business that might be worth getting listed in.

Targeting Your Campaigns
PPC search engines are constantly looking for new ways to improve their services?and your results. After all, they want you to keep purchasing advertising from them and not their competitors.

Here’s an overview of some great tools they’re offering to help you better target your ads and keep your campaign costs down:

1. Keyword Matching Options (offered by Overture and Google AdWords). Both of these search engines offer options that allow you to fine-tune the way your keyword is matched to the phrases people type into their engines. Their options differ slightly, but here’s a rough breakdown:

# Exact match. A listing is triggered by the exact keyword phrase and nothing else. Example: “fishing rods” will match “fishing rods” but not “fancy fishing rods.”
# Phrase match. A listing is triggered by the keyword phrase as it’s written, though it might be included with other terms as well. Example: “fishing rods” will match “antique fishing rods and reels” but not “rods fishing.”
# Broad match. A listing is triggered by the keyword phrase or slight variations of it, even if the words are out of order or separated by other words. Example: “fishing rods” will match “Rod’s Alaskan Fishing Adventure” and possibly even “Rod’s Fish & Chips.” Warning: The broad match option can work well for highly specific queries, such as brand names or serial numbers, but can result in a lot of poorly targeted click-throughs for general terms, especially terms that have more than one meaning, such as “dolly,” “tackle” or “nails.”
# Negative match. When words identified as “negatives” are typed into the search engine along with the keyword phrase, the listing will not appear. Example: “fishing rods – cheap” will match “fishing rods and tackle” but not “cheap fishing rods.”

2. Contextual Targeting (offered by Overture, Google AdWords, Kanoodle and Enhance Interactive). Contextual targeting places your PPC listing on websites where the content somehow relates to your ad. Obviously, this can be a great way to increase the exposure of your ad.

If you decide to try contextual targeting, however, be sure to monitor where your ads are being placed because the effectiveness of contextual targeting can vary widely. Your ads may end up featured on websites that have little to do with your advertisement?and therefore attract unqualified click-throughs.

For example, a recent USnews.com article about starting a business had a series of “Hermosa Beach Vacation” Google Ads listed beside it?because the first person interviewed in the story happened to live in Hermosa Beach! These wasted clicks can quickly drain your bank account if you aren’t careful.

3. Geotargeting (offered by Overture and Google AdWords). Geotargeting allows you to choose which countries or geographic regions your ads appear in. This feature is best suited for businesses that offer local services or products that are useful only in specific regions.

For example, if you’re a landscaper who lives in Washington state, you probably don’t want to pay for click-throughs from out-of-area visitors. After all, Texas-area residents aren’t likely to request your services.

4. Day Parting (offered by Kanoodle). Right now, Kanoodle is the only search engine we know that offers this option. “Day parting” allows you to choose the time of day your ads will appear in different regions, so they’re only available during “prime viewing times.”

For example, if your market testing shows that most people click on your ads to make a purchase in the early evening, you can make sure your ads appear only at that time in the different regions where your potential customers live.

5. Keyword Research Tools (offered by Overture, Google AdWords, FindWhat, Kanoodle, LookSmart and Enhance Interactive). The most popular keyword phrases are always the most expensive. Keyword research tools help you find common variations and misspellings of the more popular keywords so you can keep costs down while still generating traffic.

More sophisticated keyword research tools let you see how much you need to bid to achieve a particular ranking (for example, the No. 1 spot, the No. 7 spot and so on) prior to finalizing your bid. They may also provide you with traffic estimates for the different keywords and phrases you bid on.

6. Multiple Ads for the Same Keyword (offered by Google AdWords). Google AdWords allows you to “split test” different ads for the same keyword so you can see which ad attracts the most paying customers. This can save you a lot of time, and enables you to make sure your ads will yield the highest possible return on your investment.

7. “Autobid” Software (offered by Overture, Google AdWords, FindWhat, Kanoodle, LookSmart and Enhance Interactive). Autobid software is a bid management program that tracks the bidding activity on your different keywords and automatically adjusts your bidding amount so you can maintain your ranking. The more sophisticated bid management programs allow you to “cap” your bids so you never spend more than you want.

They also eliminate “bid gaps” that occur when the bidder below your listing drops their bid?your bid is automatically reduced so you maintain your position without spending more per click than necessary.

Final Thoughts
If you haven’t tried a PPC search engine campaign yet, I’d recommend doing it soon. There are still tons of cheap, targeted keywords waiting for your bids?but they may not be around much longer. More and more online businesses are realizing that?done right?a PPC campaign can be a fabulous source of cheap, instant, highly qualified traffic.

The best advice I can give you is this:

# Bid on lots of cheap, targeted keywords and phrases, including misspellings, and avoid the expensive general words that everyone is bidding on.
# Never bid more per click than what a single visitor is worth to your site?it’s the best way to make sure your ads remain profitable.
# Get listed in the “other” PPC search engines. You may be able to bid on popular terms you can’t afford in Overture and Google AdWords.
# Whenever possible, get ranked in the top 3 listings in Overture and Google AdWords. These ads appear on an extensive network of sites (including Yahoo!, MSN, AltaVista, Excite and more) and can reach up to 80 percent of all active internet users, so you get more bang for your buck.
# Target your ads as much as possible. Write “custom” ads for each keyword and use the various bid management and targeting tools offered by the different PPC search engines to reduce your costs and increase your clicks.
# Design your landing pages so they convert qualified visitors to buyers. If your ads promise “cat toys with bells,” make sure they actually direct visitors to a page where it’s easy for them to buy these items.

Corey Rudl, author of Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet and founder of www.marketingtips.com, is widely recognized as an Internet marketing expert because what he teaches are not theoretical approaches to online marketing but real examples of what works.

Source: http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/r-article-a-2437-m-6-sc-35-payperclick_tips_for_attracting_traffic-i

Google AdWords Optimization Tips

Google controls more of the search market than all of its competitors combined. With that being said, Google has a ton of advertising space to sell. If you know how to optimize AdWords better than your competitors you stand to achieve great profit.

Google vs Overture: Overture is the main competitor to Google AdWords. Overture is strictly price driven, which requires a ton of editors to perform countless hours of maintenance. Google is a highly mathematical company, and protect the quality of their listings in two ways: they have editors, and more importantly they monitor click through rate. Why does Google AdWords monitor click through rate?

Google Adwords Tips: Click Through Rate

Click through rate is a rough approximation of relevancy, in many ways this parallels the idea of grading the web on links. A relevant ad will have higher click through rates than a non relevant listing.

Google ads are not strictly price driven. Some think the added relevancy factor relates to the words in the add, while this is somewhat true, the true multiple is click through rate. If a web site has 3* the click through rate, that means Google can sell 3* as much advertising. To reward careful and considerate ads Google chops this price to 1/3 of what it would be with a site that had a third of the click through rate.

Google Adwords Tips: Keyword Selection

Successful ad buyers learn how to lower their prices by tweaking them in to match what the end user is looking for. Bidding wars should be avoided as they are a technique that indicate a lack of creativity. There are multiple ways to say the same thing, and few people are creative enough to think what is “searched for.” Yes you can exactly describe your product, but you need the people who have a problem to find your solution weather or not it exists. You may even want some of your keyword phrases to be in question format.

If you take the time to be the only one listed for a creative relevant term you may seem like the only answer to a problem, or at least the only one who cared. If you have the keywords you want to list well in within your text it they will be bold when people search for them. This will also add to your click through rate.

Qualify your traffic. One word search terms frequently draw competitors and junk traffic to a level that usually exceeds any intrinsic value the listing may have. Not every ad makes money.

Google Adwords Tips: Basic Google AdWords Listing Functions

Google has three separate ways you can list AdWords.

* AdWords A Adwords B, will pick up any search string with AdWords A Adwords B in it, even if they are in any order. In addition broad matching (which is on by default) also shows your ads for synonyms.
* “AdWords A Adwords B” will pick up any search with that exact phrase “AdWords A Adwords B” included in the search string.
* [AdWords A Adwords B] will only pick up on searches for AdWords A Adwords B

In addition to the above techniques of qualification, you can also list which words you do not want in the query. if you did not want the word “free” in the search you would put -free at the end of your keywords list, or set your negative keywords at the campaign level.

Typical bad words are: free, cheap, download, crack, pic, pics, gallery…

Google Adwords Tips: Google AdWords Syndication

Google AdWords are syndicated, which means you can choose to list only in Google; in Google & other search sites; or in Google, other search sites, and in contextual ads. Think of the various user bases and decide which may be better for you. You also can decide which countries and languages you want to list in for further targeting.

Some people have been complaining that content syndication is lowering their ROI. I offer my solution here.

Google AdWords Tips: AdWords Groupings

You can place expensive words in there own ad group. You may want to use some ad groups for generic terms and others for specific terms.

As long as they are relevant and specific you are not likely to use too many keyword phrases, just remember to place them in various groups and track them.

The proper technique to gather accurate market information is to overspend off the start and see what happens in the long run. If you overspend you collect faster feedback. You learn from your account.

Google Adwords Tips: Bidding

The important tip as far as bids go is to bid enough to get first screen exposure, and do not keep throwing more money at a problem to do this. If the click through rate is garbage, fix the keywords and content of the ads.

If you start out way too low you will always be fighting an uphill battle. Remember that you are bidding against the best ads that have been developed over time so you are likely going to get your tail kicked for a while.

Google Adwords Tips: Tracking

Google allows the ads to be grouped and has began offering a free conversion calculator. Through properly grouping and monitoring the results of your Adwords campaign it is easy to see which ads are profitable and create similar ones.

Google AdWords Tips: Targeting

Google AdWords now allows you to target your ads based on the country, state, or city level, as well as have your ads appear within a specified radius of a location.

Geotargeting will help increase your clickthrough rate and give you traffic which is more pre qualified for a purchase if you are a local business.

Google AdWords Tips: Affiliates

Only one affiliate or merchant ad can appear per landing page per keyword. Whatever ad between all the affiliate ads and the merchants own ad has the highest effective click price (max CPC bid * clickthrough rate) will display.

If affiliates make their own white label review site with substantially unique content then many of those ads can display along with the merchant ad.

Google AdWords Tips: Tips for a Successful Campaign

If you intend to launch a large AdWords campaign, these Google AdWords tips on this page are not enough to guarantee your success. You need creativity, hard work, and if you are really serious about AdWords the $69 you will spend on Andrew Goodman’s report might be the best $69 of your life. In his 150 page eBook he covers in depth details to help guarantee your success.

Many other tips are covered in his report and what you have read thus far is only the tip of the ice burg.

Source: http://www.search-marketing.info/search-engines/major-search-engines/google-adwords.htm

stages to achieving great organic listings

There are many stages to achieving great organic listings.

1. Your site should be about something you are an expert on.
2. A good site plan should be thought out before you begin marketing.
3. Scope out the competition to see how competitive your keyword landscape is.
4. Decide what keywords you want to use prior to making your site (and before each page), and include them in your meta tags , page copy, page title, and file names when possible.
5. Your site should be easy to navigate and search engine friendly.
6. Each page should have a specific focus which is strongly and thoroughly maintained throughout.
7. Submit your site to the directories.
8. (not required) Search for spam in your keywords and report spam results. Some search engines (such as Yahoo!) actively edit their search results and you may be able to get spammy competitors removed.
9. Build a linking campaign. (Link building is the single most important step to EFFECTIVE SEO.)
10. Repeat what steps you feel necessary until you achieve top rankings. This is an ongoing process for most sites (especially in competitive fields).

Sources: