Wednesday, June 24, 2009

PPC Bid Management And Maximum Website Promotion

By Tyson Drake

Tools used forinternet marketing have become very popular for affiliate marketers. This is largely because it saves a lot of time, it's cost effective, and increases traffic and profits much quicker.

PPC advertising is a good way to promote your business through paid advertising on the search engines when users type is a keyword in their search. The advertiser only pays when a searcher clicks on the add. A good example of popular search engines are google, bing, yahoo and miva. the search engines will let your add appear on different keywords the user types in. To have your add shown for different keyword, you have to bid on the add position for that keyword. The highest position normally goes to the highest bidder (not always) and so on. You only pay the amount for the keyword when a searcher clicks on your add.

PPC can be very costly as an advertising medium if not done correctly. It also takes up a lot of time to get campaigns set up and keyword research done properly. Although it can be quite profitable if done correctly.

When the user is searching for a topic they type in a keyword into the search engine. When the search results appear, you will notice that all the results are highlighted with the specific keyword you type in. Usually the first add is a paid advertisement, along with all of the other ads on the right hand side. These ads are also knows as sponsored links.

The way to start PPC bid management is to identify first the maximum cost per click (CPC) you are willing to pay for a given keyword or phrase. CPC varies from time and even search engine to search engine too. Maximum CPC can be measured by averaging the current costs of bids (bids range from $0.25 to $5). Average of these bids is to be used as the maximum CPC to begin with. As your ad campaign progresses, the actual conversion rate (visitors turning to potential buyers/sales) will be determined and you may have to adjust your CPC (bidding rate) accordingly.

When you start to bid, see to it that you adopt different bidding strategies for various search engines. Search engines have their own PPC systems that require different approaches. It is also worthy to identify different bids for the same keyword phrases in various search engines.

Bidding for the top keyword and add position can also be a very costly outcome if not done correctly. This is because most of the time a user will type in different searches and click on several ads until they find what they are looking for. You want to try and start low with around add position number five and work you way up from there.

If your PPC bidding are going well, then it is probably time you start and develop a bidding strategy. It is important to identify the ranking of your ads and which ones are bringing in the most traffic. You should also decide where you want your ads to be positioned as this can impact your profit and sales.

Bid gaps (e.g. $ 0.40, 0.39, bid gap, 0.20, 0.19, 0.18) occur when there is a significant price increase to move up one spot in the PPC rankings. It is best if you take advantage of the bid gaps by filling them in so you can save up your cents to other bidding opportunities. Often there are keywords worthy of lesser bids to get the appropriate ranking on the list and produce a good number of clicks and higher conversion rate rather than bidding higher but having a poor conversion rate. You have to put in mind that overbidding too is not good but rather the best position for the most effective bid.

Using pay-per-click bid management in promoting your website will only be successful if you take time building many lists across many engines and studying the performance of every listing. In this way, you can make the most value from what you spend in the bidding process. The key is to use the necessary precautions to stay ahead of the competition.

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Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Checking Your PPC Ads

By Brian Basch

A common cause for concern in any PPC advertising campaign is the quality and effectiveness of an ad. You need an ad that will not only draw people to your site, but will also lead to sales.

Construction of the ad for your PPC campaign is very basic. It is in fact a small classified ad. There are 3 parts to it; first the headline, second the body and thirdly the call for action. The headline should be eye catching and memorable. The reader should be attracted to the headline right away and it should compel them to read more. The body of the ad should have one or two benefits of the product and service. Lastly there should be a strong call for action with a link to the sales page for your product or service.

In order to achieve optimal ads, you should use split testing. This will allow you to test ads against each other and find the strongest ad possible. The first thing you will want to do is set up 2 campaigns for the same product. These campaigns will use separate ads and link to separate landing pages for easy data tracking.

Tweak the second ad until it out performs the first, then take down the first ad and replace it with a new one. Adjust this ad until it can out perform the second ad. You can continue to do this until you achieve maximum performance from your ad. This part of PPC management can be somewhat time consuming but will be well worth it when you see the additional profits.

Your ad will be based around your main keyword for your business. It can be used either for an affiliate program or your own products and services. Google Adwords allows affiliate programs but not all PPC engines do.

You will want your ad to be as targeted as possible. Since you are paying per click, you want as many sales as possible to be generated from the traffic coming to your site. A broad keyword can draw traffic but will not bring in much sales.

In order to keep potential customers coming to your site, you will need to keep making adjustments to your ads. In order to help you do this, Google Adwords offers a variety of tools and tutorial to aid in the management of your ads and your entire PPC advertising campaign.

A lot of people, while focusing on their keywords and bidding very intensely, will post and ad and then forget about it. This is extremely unwise. Your ads are what will herd your customers to you. If you do not continue to maintain a strong ad your campaign may end up failing.

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