Articles

"Pay-Per-Click" Advertising Secrets

As seen in Greater Charlotte Biz Magazine, [webbiz], April-2010
Author: William H. (Kip) Cozart, III, CEO, President, Co-Founder
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With the local economy picking up speed again, it is more important than ever to get your business online and out in front of the competition as quickly as possible. One of the fastest and most cost efficient ways to lead in this race for market share and to generate new sales is through the strategic use of “pay-per-click” advertising (PPC).

While a PPC campaign does not replace the need for a substantial, ongoing search engine optimization plan (SEO), it can provide an immediate extra boost for your highly targeted call-to-action sales initiatives. If you have already experimented with such services as Google AdWords, Bing and Yahoo Search, you already know that beginning an initial PPC campaign on your own can be a very hit-or-miss experience. What are some of the secrets the pros use to maximize and accelerate their pay-per-click results? Think “Quick Click.”

Build Immediacy Into Your Ad Message…Give the customer a compelling reason to click on your specific ad listing right away, before they get distracted by other ad postings. Consider prompts such as: “Time is running out…” “Free Trial Available Today…” “Limited Time Offer...” “An Expert is Online Now to Answer Your Questions…” “Click For Immediate Assistance…”

The “Key” to Selecting Effective Keywords…Don’t waste time or money purchasing overly broad phrases. Use of broadly popular phrases costs more and rarely contributes to actionable click-through responses. Instead, narrow your word choices to very specific product solutions. Longer word combinations tend to offer greater control over ad placement and can improve productive exposure to more qualified prospects. Limit ad postings to exact geographic locations (and decrease your bidding rates at the same time).

Don’t Over Bid for Keywords…Keep in mind, there rarely is a single specific word or exact phrase that must be purchased in order to attract qualified customers to your website. For example, instead of bidding $10 per click for the single most popular phrase, consider bidding $3 per click to obtain a top position for two or three similar phrases instead, which when combined could add up to more overall impressions and a greater overall click potential.

Monitor & Adjust your PPC Campaign Every Day…Review your progress every day. Your campaign will pick up speed by building upon earlier successes. Drop underperforming key words quickly, shifting available budgets to those phrases that are performing better. Suspend your campaign at times when you are least likely to be able to respond to pay-per-click inquiries, during nights or weekends for example if staffing is unavailable at these times. Consistent monitoring can also alert you to fraudulent click activity and provide you with the opportunity to suspend the campaign and limit losses until the service provider can investigate.

Gain Faster Insight by Analyzing Competitor Activity…If you are not sure where to start or you have not been advertising long enough to test out your initial keyword assumptions, test drive the search engine yourself. Enter common industry phrases and track which competitors appear during certain keyword combinations. Consider both paid ad placement as well as listings that may appear within the generic search engine listings.

Don’t Overlook the Value of Impressions…Certainly, the primary goal of pay-per-click advertising is to generate “clicks” that lead qualified customers to your website or landing page. But, remember that each time your ad appears on the page, you are gaining free, incremental awareness that can also add up to an eventual sales response. If your ad clearly conveys your unique selling proposition, identifies your company’s name and phone number, and is displayed to a qualified target audience, your efforts will not go unrewarded.

Experiment with Different Offers and Call-to-Action Appeals…Test several ways that can improve your click response rates, using different directives or incentives within a series of ads.

Pick Your Battlefield Carefully…Launch your advertising campaign with one search engine platform at a time. For instance, while typically Google attracts the greatest number of online users, you might find that initial PPC experimentation on Bing and Yahoo Search can be much more cost efficient. Then, once you have tested and refined your strategies, your money will stretch further if you carry your campaign over to Google.

Free (or Almost Free) PPC Resources...There is a wealth of online tools that can help you quickly jump-start your pay-per-click campaigns. Receive $25 in free clicks when you open an account with Yahoo Search Marketing (Overture), which covers numerous search engine leaders, including Yahoo!, Bing, AltaVista and others. Other offers include: Free account setup and a $50 PPC credit at Ask.com, $100 matching credit for PPC advertising at ABCSearch.com, $20 in free clicks at Bidvertiser.com, $20 credit with a $50 PPC purchase at Search123.com, as well as a $5 new account click credit at Kanoodle.com, featuring online partners like CBS MoneyWatch.com, Dogpile.com, Go2Net.com and Microsoft Internet Explorer Autosearch.

For more information about emerging online technologies, please visit: http://www.cccommunications.com/resources_articles.cfm

To learn more about PPC Advertising services offered by CC Communications, please visit: http://www.cccommunications.com/ppc/.

About the author:

As one of the region’s earliest pioneers in the field of online communications, Kip Cozart, along with CC Communications owner/partners Russ Husky and Loretta Cozart, has consulted with hundreds of businesses and organizations to enhance and produce effective web, email, multimedia marketing initiatives and business process improvements for fifteen years. Contact kcozart@cccommunications.com or call
CC Communications at 704-543-1171.