Clicking With Online Adverts
by Mark Vandorone
http://www.fivemarketing.com
As the free search engines become increasingly competitive,
not to mention complex, pay-per-click ("PPC") advertising
can be ideal for the small business operating in a niche
market.
Study the workings of the PPC search engines and you'll bo
on a fast-track to success. Conversely, poor knowledge can
put your business on the slippery slope to ruin. Listen to
me carefully now! Learn how to operate PPC search engines
and you will have a great advantage over your competition.
If you've ever attended an auction to bid for a piece of
furniture or artwork you'll have some idea of how to
advertise on the PPC search engines. In this case you're
bidding for high ranked spots on the keywords you've
identified for your business. Visitors will arrive at your
site by clicking on your search engine advert, and each
time that happens you'll pay the search engine the value of
your bid. A bid can be as low as 5 cents, but some highly
competitive keywords can cost several dollars.
Let's talk about the pros and cons of PPC advertising.
First the pros :
1. You don't pay unless someone clicks on your advert.
2. Can be an inexpensive method of attracting targeted
traffic to your site.
3. Anyone can get the top advertising spot if they outbid
the competition.
4. You can usually have a PPC advertising campaign up and
running in a matter of minutes, and making sales almost
immediately.
5. Adverts can be cancelled immediately if they are not
successful.
6. You can test your advert, making amendments quickly and
simply.
However, be aware of the disadvantages :-
1. Not everyone who clicks on your advert is a potential
customer. You will have to pay for these junk clicks though.
2. Competition over that top spot can result in a bidding
war, driving up the cost per click.
3. Certain PPC search engines insist on rigorous approval
procedures. These can be time consuming and frustrating if
the advert they approve is not to your liking.
4. A poorly worded or, even worse, misleading advert could
generate traffic but not make sales. Unless you've placed a
restriction on your advertising budget, your business could
quickly be on the road to insolvency.
So how do you start with PPC advertising? First you need to
establish which keywords your potential customers are
searching on. No point in bidding for traffic on an
inappropriate keyword. There are many ways of doing this
research, unfortunately it is way beyond the scope of this
article. But this is an important step that shouldn't be
missed and I'll be covering it more fully in a future
article.
Before you can contemplate making a bid on the keywords
you've established it is vital that you know the monetary
value of a visitor to your site. That is you must be able
to calculate on average how much revenue each visitor
generates. Simple math will then tell you how far you can
go in the bidding process.
If you want to use PPC advertising to test your sales copy
on a new site with no visitor knowledge, then monitor your
costs versus sales closely. A daily budget is advisable at
the outset. Limit your spending to something you can afford
to lose if the worst occurs and you don't make any sales.
Raise this as appropriate once you can see the sales
conversion rate.
You're almost ready to get going. What I've provided here
is an overview of PPC advertising. Use this as the first
building block in your quest to master the PPC search
engines.
Wishing you every success with your online advertising.
Submit An Article
|
