Pay Per Click

If you're on the web and selling something, Pay Per Click (PPC) is likely to crop up early as part of your business strategy.

It's best not reserved as your only monetization model as you should never rely on just one source of income.

However, it's widely accepted now as a web standard and will particularly serve any keyworded, niche and content based site very well.

Pay Per Click basics

The overall aim of this style of marketing is to reach potential purchasers and get them to click the ads which are displayed on your website.

Advertisers bid for keywords which they deem to be most appropriate to the niches that they're working in and they link their ads to those words and phrases.

Their ads show up in other websites and when a user goes on to click and buy, the website owner takes a small commission.

The reason why niche, keyworded websites work so well with Pay Per Click advertising is that they match up search engine queries so beautifully with relevant content and targeted ads.

Take a look at some of the pages on this website, all of which arer optimized for one keyword ... look at the relevance of the ads that are served on each page, and see how closely focused they are to page content.

It takes the web user further and further down a 'web funnel' as they get closer to their original search term

It's why you should combine PPC with a proper keywording strategy, or it simply wont be effective enough for you to generate decent income from it.

For example, Google AdWords can throw up some pretty random adverts on a non keyworded page.

It's like going to look at a website about castles and finding ads for spectacles ... it's pretty unlikely that you'll click on an ad and make a purchase.

The secret is all in the keywords.

Pay Per Click tips

1) The sole aim of buying PPC ads is to get people to make meaningful clicks ie ones that result in a sale for you. Don't mislead or overpromise, or they'll click on your ad, you'll have to pay but no purchase will be made. Convert clicks to clients!

2) Putting your prices in your ads can pre-qualify customers and stop 'idle clickers' ... though don't get to price too soon if it's quite high and might put people off. You have to make a judgement about how 'hard' your product is to sell ... it is a fairly cheap impulse buy or a high layout product that needs careful research and consideration. Pitch accordingly!

3) Use A/B testing as a routine. This simply means that you have multiple 9or at least two) versions of your ads running at any one time, and you monitor your click data to see which is performing best for each keyword and in which niche.

It's ongoing marketing reasearch which shows you if - and how - you're making money and tells you how you can do it better next time.

4) Make time to do some learning before you start splashing out cash on Pay Per Click ads.

Good sources of info are the Google Learning Center or 'AdWords For Dummies', a series which I really recommend if you want clear, step-by-step guides on how to do things properly.

5) Don't just leave your campaigns on auto-pilot, check your strategy on an ongoing basis to make sure that you're not wasting money. PPC is a great way on generating an online income, but it takes time, research and experience to get it right.

6) Use Google Analytics and get some essential data about how users are interacting with your web pages, where their leaving your site and what clicks they're making.

It's free and is quite an incredible tool to see in action.

Pay Per Click jargon

There are some key phrases that you need to know and understand if you're starting with Pay Per Click and they can get a bit overwhelming when they're all over a keyword research page or analytics sheet.

CPC (cost per click): This is how much the advertiser is charged when somebody clicks on their ad.

Different keywords cost different amounts, and this all depends on the level of competition for each keyword.

CTR (click through rate): This is the number of clicks received by an advert divided by the number of page impressions.

Although your advert might appear on a page, if it doesn't grab my attention or interest me, I won't click on it.

It counts as one page impression when you advert appears on a page, and a click is when somebody clicks on your ad, but doesn't necessarily buy.

The higher the click through rate, the better performing your ad.

Conversion: Getting a web user to do something positive, a desirable action, like buying, subscribing,taking a free trial, signing up to your ezine etc.

Bid price: The maximum amount that an advertiser will pay for a click that results from a given keyword

Landing page: The page that a web user lands on when they click on your ad.

this won't necessarily be your home page, it should be a space specifically aimed at converting a 'warm' user to a paying customer.

Getting started with Pay Per Click

Google Adword is not the only PPC website, though you wouldn't know it from the average article posted on the internet.

There are in fact many sources of ads, and I recommend you try a few to see which works for you.

I've listed my three favourites below, but many more are available:

Google AdWords is the 'must have' PPC outlet for any internet marketer.

You simply can't ignore Google, they do what they do so well and offer so much free intelligence and support into the bargain.

Facebook Ads shouldn't be overlooked as they offer some excellent social profiling tools and allow to to use images in your adverts.

For instance, you can target specific Network Marketing groups through Facebook as well tie down age groups, precise geographical location and so on.

I find their editorial guidelines to be inconsistently applied at times, one minute an advert is accepted, the next it's been knocked back, but the ease of use and analytics support make this an attractive PPC option to try.

Microsoft AdCenter

I bet many people bypass Microsoft altogether these days, but their Pay Per Click advertsing service is extremely good and very easy to use ... and dare I say, it seems a bit cheaper than others though I have no empirical evidence to back this up.

Pay Per Click ad strategies

When you create your PPC adverts, it's worth noting the following design points:

# Organise your campaigns so that they are separate and not confused.

This will help your tracking and make you more effective in the long run.

# Focus in on your target niche to make sure you concert clicks to customers.

Don't have a scattergun approach to your keywords, keep them tightly together like herding sheep.

Work out what's relevant and what you can afford, then focus in.

# Look for three and four word phrases which have less competition but which perform very well.

# Go where the traffic is first, then work outwards from there.

It's easier to experiment and try increased A/B testing when you have some money coming in!

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