Saturday, March 25, 2006

PPC ADVERTISING: HOW TO MAKE YOUR BUSINESS "CLICK"

PPC stands for Pay Per Click - a popular advertising technique on the Internet. Found on websites, advertising networks, and especially on search engines, PPC advertising involves sponsored links that are typically in the form of text ads. These are usually placed close to search results, where an advertiser pays a particular amount to visitors who click on these links or banners and land on the advertiser's web page.

In essence, PPC advertising is all about bidding for the top or leading position on search engine results and listings. Advertisers do this by buying or bidding on keyword phrases that are relevant to their products or services - the higher the bid, the higher the spot on the search results, the more the people will find the ad (and click on it) to go to their websites (this is why some people call it "keyword auctioning"). Advertisers would then pay the bidding price every time a visitor clicks through the website.

PPC advertising is also known under the following names/variations:

· Pay per placement
· Pay per performance
· Pay per ranking
· Pay per position
· Cost per click (CPC)

PPC advertising is usually done with the following standard procedures:

1. Setting up an account and/or deposit funds.

2. Creating a keyword list.

3. Choosing (and setting up) an account with a PPC search engine.

4. Bidding on the ad placement, including the search result words or phrases.

5. Writing out an ad copy.

6. Setting up the 'landing pages' for your ads.

7. Placing the advertisement in the search engine.

There are many benefits to Pay Per Click advertising, making it an effective way of promoting a business 'online'. Some of them are listed below:

· Get launched immediately. PPC advertisements are implemented very quickly - they can go 'online' within an hour after winning the bid and paying for it.

· Obtain specific, pre-qualified, and quality traffic. PPC provides you with a quality or a well-targeted traffic. Visitors are narrowed down into 'qualified' people who are actually looking for specific products and/or services that you offer - those who are more likely to become a 'lead' (a convert) and complete a transaction (either by buying your product or subscribing to the service that you are offering.

· Widen your reach. PPC advertising provides additional traffic to your site, aside from the natural or "organic" search engines.

· Track your investment. PPC advertising makes use of a tracking system that will determine exactly who comes to the website and what they do once they arrive - the length of their stay on the site and the number of pages (including the actual pages) that they view. These are valuable tools in determining statistics such as return on investment (ROI), acquisition cost-per-visitor, and conversion rates (the percentage of visitors who are converted into customers or leads).

Below are some important things to consider when planning on a pay per click campaign:

1. Know your product. Take an inventory of the product and/or services that you have to offer (before anything else).

2. Stay within the budget. Determine your daily or monthly budget; and stay with it. This means keeping your budget in mind, avoiding bidding wars if possible.

3. Bid just right. Know how to bid right - a bid that is too high can exhaust all of your money, while a bid that is too low can make you lose that spot.

4. Watch the bottom line. Measure your profit margin against your spending or expenses. Know when to stop and terminate your PPC program - if you spend more on advertising but have little or no sales at all.

5. Find the right keywords. Decide which keyword phrases to opt and bid for. Do some keyword research, either by actually looking at existing search terms or with the use of online keyword suggestion tools, to know which terms are mostly used when searching for items that are related to your business. Focus on specific keywords, not on general ones.

6. Write effective ads. A good PPC ad is that which can persuade and move a searcher. There are several approaches to this:

· Discount offers
· Testimonials
· Celebrity/famous endorsers
· Money-back guarantees
· Free trials or sample offers
· Freebies
· Reverse psychology
· Major benefits ("Lose weight")
· Direct instructions ("Click here")

7. Maintain a professional-looking site. Your web content should be regularly updated and checked for spelling and grammatical errors. There should be no broken links or images. The website should be simple - designed in such a way that it will be easy for visitors to navigate and load. Include contact details to create a good impression among potential customers.

Done properly, PPC advertising can be an effective marketing tool that will maximize the return on your investment.

Learn more about marketing for your site here.

posted by Deb @ 9:35 AM 0 comments

Monday, March 20, 2006

Another Question... This time about RSS

If you don't quite understand what RSS is, click on the title of this post, otherwise here's the question that I recently received:

How do I go about syndicating my blog or creating an RSS feed?

The short, sweet and simple answer is:

Go to feedburner.com

Follow their instructions, check out all that they have to offer and voila' your blog is syndicated and has an RSS link that you can publicize!

There are harder ways to do it, but why make it harder than it needs to be?

posted by Deb @ 10:54 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

Ask My Web Gal

A few days ago I received an excellent question through my Ask My Web Gal site. While the person that submitted the question, didn't give me much information to give a more specific answer, I thought I'd share my answer here...

I'm just starting out with a website. Can you tell me what it needs to come up to speed to be competetive in the market. What information should be posted on the website that could be helpful tip?

Different content is needed for different types of sites.

For a sales site with a single product you need a long sales letter type of content that focuses on the benefits that customers would get from your product. A customer would find your site to solve a problem, and your content should reflect that you understand their problem and have the solution.

For a sales site with multiple products, you would need to focus on information that will begin to teach people what you offer and base the content on each of your products and how they solve problems... again give descriptions, but mostly benefits to the buyer.

For an informational site, you would need to have content pages that address each aspect of a niche within the overall theme of the site. Educational, informative, perhaps humorous. Be yourself and write as though you are talking to someone about the subject. Keep it interesting and fresh.

In any type of site you want to address the interests of your visitors from their perspective. You want to come across as friendly and knowledgeable and slowly move them through the information you present in the direction you wish them to go whether it be moving through the pages of your site, purchasing a product, or giving you their name and email address so you can follow up to them.

The thing to remember is not to give them too many choices right off the bat. Think about what you want them to do first and foremost, then write your content to make that happen. Add to your site with the next important step you want visitors to take, and so on.

I hope that helps and I wish you success with your web site.

For more detailed information on a variety of subjects having to do with successful web sites, read my Internet Business Strategies.

posted by Deb @ 8:43 AM 0 comments