Internet Marketing Blog

How many internet businesses want more traffic and more sales? Almost all of them! The quickest way to drive more traffic to your website is with Pay Per Click advertising, also known as PPC, paid search, and SEM (Search Engine Marketing). Those are the ads which appear on top of and to the right, to the right and on top of the ‘natural’ or ‘organic’ search results. Whenever somebody clicks on an ad, the advertiser pays the search engine for the visitor to their site. The cost of clicks can range from just pennies to over $25.00 each! Done correctly, Pay Per Click advertising is a great method to drive additional traffic to a web site to generate sales, leads, or both. You get almost instantaneous feedback, access to millions of prospects, and the ability to test different ads and keywords to a highly targeted, laser-focused market. With the cost of keywords constantly rising and more competition every day, however, there can be many problems with AdWords if not done right. Listed below are five ways to save with PPC management, Pay Per Click management, AdWords management, paid search management companies.

MARKET RESEARCH: As an advertiser, your first challenge, obstacle is to specifically define your target market. Do you have the time, patience, and resources to uncover your target market’s demographics? The single most important demographic to know about your target market for PPC ads is education. It is the biggest difference between search users who click on ads and those who don’t. If your target market is highly educated, then PPC, Pay Per Click, AdWords is often a poor way to drive traffic to your web site. That’s because people with a Ph. D. only click on ads 1% of the time. Those with a high school degree, High school graduates will click on ads about half the time. Writing properly worded ads for your target market is not only difficult, it requires exceptional command of the English language. Perfectly matching your ads with keywords for your target market is only the first step. An ad should be relentlessly split-tested, especially during its first two weeks. Unless your company’s specialty is market research, your PPC ads will be more focused, defined, and profitable when written by a professional PPC management, Pay Per Click management, AdWords management company with market research capability.

RETURN ON INVESTMENT (ROI): There are multiple ways to reduce expenses with PPC ads, Pay Per Click ads, Google AdWords. Bidding too little for keywords can result in your ad not showing on the first page, resulting in very few viewers. This reduces your Click Through Rate (CTR), which lowers your Quality Score, which costs you more money. Bidding too much on keywords can get you a higher ad position, but can also result in more lookers who click on your ad out of curiosity, not because they’re serious. If you don’t know the optimum and statistically proven ad positions and range for your target market, you will get a higher ROI with a dedicated AdWords management firm. Mastering a minimum and maximum keyword cost is a skill which takes time. Can your business afford ‘on the job training’ when running PPC ads?

QUALITY SCORE: Google uses Quality Score to determine your cost per keyword and placement of your ad. Generally, your Quality Score is determined by several, Google determines your Quality Score using various factors, including the CTR (Click Through Rate) of both keywords and URLs, landing page quality, ad relevance, and other factors known only to Google. A poor Quality Score means you will pay more for your keywords. It also has a negative effect on where your ad appears. New users of AdWords start out at a disadvantage because they lack a track record. Improving a Quality Score takes time and costs money. In a challenging economy, can your business afford that?, is that a prudent use of limited funds? A PPC management company can quickly improve a quality score. Most individual advertisers don’t have that skill.

LANDING PAGE QUALITY: No matter how compelling your ads are, if your landing page doesn’t match almost exactly what someone was searching for, you’re simply throwing money away. Your landing page must also be optimized for maximum usability and conversion using CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization). Even if you’ve spent, invested a lot of money in design, it doesn’t mean your site is easy to use and navigate. A Pay Per Click management company should offer complimentary installation of Google Analytics, which shows where visitors leave, have problems with a web site. Installation of a ‘heatmap’ program, which shows where visitors click and hover their mouses, gives you valuable additional information and data should also be included.

COPYWRITING SKILLS: Powerful and persuasive, Successful and seductive internet copywriting is a talent possessed by very few, yet it is vital to the success of your Pay Per Click campaign. For example, the top internet copywriters, who earn millions of dollars per year, know when a ‘yelling’ word is preferred and when to use a ‘quiet’ word. Copywriters know the main purpose of a PPC, a Pay Per Click, an AdWords headline is to get somebody to read the ad. Some ad headlines work best as statements, while others work best as questions. Some ads need to be shocking or provocative while other ads work best, better in a simple understated manner. With only 25 characters available for a headline and just 35 characters for each of the two lines of text, every word needs maximum impact to bring the message across. A good AdWords management company should offer copywriting services.

WHAT TO LOOK FOR IN A paid search FIRM:
When choosing a company or individual to manage your PPC, Pay Per Click, Google AdWords campaigns, they should be able to do the following:

•Optimize your site for the highest possible usability and sales with CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization).
•Stay up-to-date, current with Google’s constantly evolving rules and regulations to minimize or eliminate your chances of being banned or suspended by Google.
•Manage multiple accounts and millions, hundreds of thousands of keywords.
•Manage your account both manually and through the use of software and web-based programs.
•Provide you with a regular, scheduled account review and offer recommendations.
•Give you a choice of payment methods – a monthly retainer or a percentage of ad spending. Each method had advantages and disadvantages, If a company only offers one method, be careful.
•Coordinate the prudent use of pay per click advertising in tandem with SEO, search engine optimization, advising when to use one or both techniques.
•Offer short-term or month-to-month agreements. Avoid companies which want you to sign long-term contracts.

Luke Brown is the owner of Luke Brown Marketing, an internet marketing company, and has been marketing online since 2000. He is a certifies Google AdWords expert.

Find realistic hints to traffic to website – welcome to your own knowledge base.