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Everyone with a business and a website wants their website to be prominently featured on the search engines. Pay Per Click advertising is one way to ensure that your products and services are found by people who are searching for information related to those products or services. Google search and YouTube are two strong example but not the only examples. Bing's AdCenter (owned by Microsoft) and Social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn have entered the online advertising fray.

For example, if someone is searching for topics of "best 4G phone"; on the top of the page's results will be a list of sponsored product followed by a list of websites "ADS" pay per click advertisements geared specifically to the keyword phrase "best 4G phone". On Google you can recognize these by looking the words "Sponsored" "  or "Ad" in small print at the top of the advertising area. 

 

 

In Pay-Per-Click the advertiser is charged only when someone clicks on their advertisement. That is where the phrase PPC or pay per click originates. To make sure that their advertisement appears in the most relevant searches, advertisers or a digital marketing agency  will research and come up with a list of keywords that are most relevant to what they sell. Now, PPC advertising can be highly a highly effective way of making money, but it's also an easy way to lose a lot of money if it isn't done right.

Here are five best practices tips to get off to the right start before setting up and launching your new advertising campaign:

Online Advertising: Four Best Practices In PPC - Pay Per Click Advertising

We'll start with a bonus. Don't launch a campaign until you've created an attractive and effective landing page for your online advertising campaign. Make sure that the web page that you send people to from the PPC ad is well designed and optimized to convert visitors. And if you don't know what that means, do research into optimizing a sales page or landing page before starting a  PPC campaign. You are paying good money to send people to your website, and you want to turn those advertising dollars into profit. Your home page is most likely to be the best page to send them to; you want to send them to a site page which has been specifically and professionally designed to sell. Two terms for this type page is Squeeze Page or Landing Page.

1. Test These Three : Keywords, Headlines, Copy

Test different PPC ad versions to see which ones convert (generate sales, sign-ups, downloads) the best, which ones get higher click rates, and so on. PPC is all about continually testing, tracking, and refining. If you test - track carefully and test long enough gauge the probability of this campaign is doing better or worse than before.

If possible, split test several pages; most PPC campaigns allow for this. To split test, you change one variable on a web page and see which one converts most successfully. Experiment with different headlines, with different offers, with different color schemes. I suggest only changing one element at a time, test it for a few days, and then move on to new tests until you've come up with your winning formula.

2 Research Keyword Quantity and Quality

Make sure that the keywords that you select have enough monthly searches. Several thousand searches a month is a good target range. Google and others have a no-free keyword research tool which is useful, and there are a number of reputable paid tools as well.

3. Control Your Costs

Keep an eye on keyword costs at all times. Profit with a PPC campaign involves a careful balance of expenses versus profit. If one of your competitors is outbidding you on a keyword, don't cling to that one keyword if it gets too expensive. You should have a list of dozens or hundreds of keywords. Don't be the person who gets caught up in auction fever and ends up spending far too much just for the sake of winning the auction. You may spend so much per keyword that your campaign stops being profitable no matter how much you earn.

4. Test Headlines and Copy

Test different PPC ads to see which ones convert the best, which ones get higher click rates, and so on. PPC is all about continually testing, tracking, and refining. If you test - track carefully and test long enough.

5. Set Strong Spending Limits

Set a small daily limit in the beginning and experiment for at least a few weeks before you start pouring a lot of money into a campaign. This will help you identify successful keywords and successful PPC advertisements. And never forget to set your daily spending limit on your ad campaigns, or you could wake up the next day and find that thousands of people have clicked on your ads - which is only helpful if your home page is successfully converting enough visitors into sales.

If not, you could be clicked into bankruptcy, or at least into a huge PPC bill.

 
 Margaret Ross Margaret S. Ross is a business and technology author, consultant, CEO of Visible Strategies Agency and the Founder of the Kamaron Institute. @kamaron_org Visible Strategies Request Consultation

 

 

 

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Columnist, CEO – Margaret S Ross