Know Your PPC Search Engine Internet Marketing Campaign part 1 of 3

By anitobopper | Dec 12, 2008

PPC search engine internet marketing is one way to market your site on the net. If you know what you’re doing, it’s the fastest way to get traffic and conversion to your site. PPC ads are very similar to the classified ads you see in the newspaper. When you do a search on Google, it’s what you see appearing on top left of the page and at the right side of the search results. The main purpose of these ads is to generate a click from the viewer.

As in any marketing campaign, PPC search engine internet marketing has its pros and cons. If done correctly, you can have instant clicks to your landing page especially if your ad sits on top of the search page. However, since PPC is a bidding war, if your competition bids higher than your bid, your ad will be placed in a lower position on the search result page. In effect, you will have to raise your bid to regain the top position - which can obviously be quite expensive, especially if you are bidding on a highly contested keyword.

Word of caution - PPC search engine internet marketing is generally NOT for newbies. Be prepared to spend or lose money on your PPC search engine internet marketing campaign. The key here is to understand the process and monitor your PPC search engine internet marketing campaign frequently so as to avoid losing money altogether.

Here’s what you need to focus on to effectively conduct your PPC search engine internet marketing campaign:

keyword or keyword phrase
budget for cost per click
ad copy
relevance
landing page

Here in part 1, we’ll tackle the first two i.e. keyword or keyword phrase and secondly, your budget for cost per click. The rest will be discussed in part 2 and 3.

Keyword
Before you even start your PPC search engine internet marketing campaign, the first and most important thing to consider is your “keyword” or “keyword phrase”. The keyword should concisely describe your product or service. Try as much as possible to choose “long tail keywords” that would help you target keywords with fewer competition for your PPC search engine internet marketing ad campaign.

For instance, if you’re selling “mp3 players”, you can go to SEO tools keyword search and look for the keyword phrase which has a low daily search volume of around 100 or less or maybe 200 or less. This isn’t really an exact science but I know of someone who has greatly benefited from using this strategy in his PPC search engine internet marketing campaign. There are other sites that would do keyword research but the one I mentioned is free to use.

Ex. “mp3 players” - here are the results:
best rated mp3 players
rate mp3 players
consumer reports on mp3 players
discount mp3 players
inexpensive mp3 players
samsung mp3 players
mp3 portable players comparison
what mp3 players are compatible with itunes
top ten mp3 players
low price mp3 players

Budget for Cost per Click
Next to consider is how much you are willing to pay for each click. If you have a product or service that sells for $100.00 and it normally takes around 15 clicks to achieve a sale, you would want to budget approximately fifteen cents per click. On the other hand, if it takes 50 or more clicks to get a sale, you would want to budget at least fifty or more cents per click. Generally you would only want to spend a few cents for every click in order to stretch your budget, the lower the better.

Knowing this, it’s going to be a budget balancing act to decide on how much you are willing to spend for your PPC search engine internet marketing campaign whose purpose is to land your ad at the top spot on Google’s serps while keeping a tight reign on how much your budget would last in the long run.

This way, you are able to take full control of your ad expenses for your PPC search engine internet marketing campaign.

This ends Part 1 of know your PPC search engine internet marketing campaign. In part 2 we’ll discuss the importance of your ad copy, its relevance and lastly, your landing page in part 3. Stay tuned.