Imagine if you could advertise only to people who have expressed an interest in your product or service.

That’s what happens if you decide to incorporate pay per click (ppc) advertising into your marketing program. Every time someone types a phrase into a search engine they are showing an interest in that topic. If that topic is related to your business it is an opportunity to drive highly targeted traffic to your website.

What is Pay Per Click Advertising?

PPC is an online advertising format that allows you to buy your way to the top of search result pages for search phrases relevant to your business. Businesses buy advertising on specific search phrases, and are then charged each time a person clicks through to their website or landing page.

When reviewing the results of common search terms such as ‘DVD players,’ you’ll see a set of results labeled ‘Sponsored Links.’ These listings are paid advertisements usually appearing as the first two to three listings at the top of the page and then down the right side column.

These ads are ranked on a combination of how much a business is willing to pay per keyword and in Google’s case, an algorithim called ‘quality score.’ The bidding system that is used is an efficient bidding system. In the search for ‘DVD players’ if the current company in top position bids $1.00 per click and advertiser two bids $0.80 per click, the top position pays $0.81 for their click (one penny more than the position below you) not their maximum bid of $1.00.

Ads are purchased through PPC advertising suppliers. The three largest are owned by Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo.

Why Would I Pay for Traffic?

If you can make more money off a visitor to your website than it costs to get them there, why wouldn’t you pay for those visitors? The only way to know if you are achieving that goal is to measure. Before starting a ppc campaign you should install an analytics program on your site, such as Google Analytics.

PPC Advertising Tips:

• Organize your search terms into small groups of similar terms. These small groups in Google are called ad groups. As you continue to optimize your campaign you should create more and more ad groups.
• Build unique ads for each ad group. The biggest benefit of pay per click advertising is knowing what terms your potential customers are searching for. Build ads that incorporate those search terms in the headline, body, and url of the ad.
• Test, Test, Test. Pay per click has a great platform for testing. Every ad group should be running two ads at the same time ( be sure to change your settings to serve your ads evenly). Once you get about thirty clicks see which ad is performing better and delete the other. Write another ad trying to improve the ad groups performance.
• Send visitors to the most appropriate page of your website. If you place an ad for a specific product within your online store, don’t send visitors to your homepage and force them to dig for what they just searched. This frustrates your visitors and increases the chance that they’ll hit the dreaded Back button. Instead send them to the most relevant page to their search. If you have a service business consider creating a custom landing page for each service you provide and send traffic to that landing page instead of your website.
• Track your results. Use an analytics program, such as Google Analytics to track the results of your campaign. One of the fastest ways to loose money in pay per click advertising is to run a campaign without tracking your results. Track your results so you can do more of what works and less of what doesn’t.

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