PPC Ad Basics - 5 Simple Ways to Increase the Effectiveness of Your PPC Campaign

Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC) is a popular online marketing solution that can effectively increase your online visibility and brand recognition, especially when combined with other online marketing techniques such as Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

However, certain PPC basic must be considered and utilized skillfully in order to maximize the potential of your PPC campaign. These 5 PPC ad basics may be common knowledge to those already well-versed in Internet marketing, but to those who are relatively new to PPC, they are required reading.

1. Keywords in the Ad

Keywords are going to be the most important aspect of your PPC ad campaign. When constructing your PPC ads, there are two places that keywords will come into play: the first is in the ad itself, and the second is related to what keywords might relate best to your ad and the products or services you offer, enabling your ad to align better with search engine queries.

Keywords used in ad should be the strongest possible. You won’t be able to overload your ad with keywords, as content of a PPC as is rather limited. So choose keywords that work best for what you are advertising. Keywords in the ad headline are essential, and should be repeated in the ad text as well if possible.

2. Keywords for Your Campaign

You will need to create a list of targeted keywords that relate to your ad. When Internet users enter a search engine query that uses these keywords, your ad may show alongside the search results.

You can choose as many keywords as you want for this list, but it is always beneficial to utilize keywords that may only appeal to your specific target market. This will ensure that those who click on your ad are definitely interested in what you have to offer, and eliminate those who click on your ad merely out of curiosity or because of misinformation, which will cost you money unnecessarily.

3. Include a Call to Action

Integrating keywords into your PPC ad is a good first step, but you must also include a call to action in order to better entice your target market to click on your ad. Because actual content allowance is limited, it will have to be short and to the point.

For example, suppose you are a moving company. Your PPC ad may contain a call to action that says “Get a free quote for your move,” or “Save 10% when you move with us,” or even “Learn more about why we’re the best choice.”

Note that these call to actions all contain an element of enticement, letting the reader know what he will get in return for clicking on your ad.

4. Visual Appeal

PPC ads have very little visual appeal, and at a glance, they all appear to look the same. But there are subtle things you can do to make your ad stand out a little. You can bold specific words to emphasize importance, or use capitalization as well if you feel it suits the ad without making it appear sloppy and unreadable.

5. What is the Competition Doing?

Chances are you have a decent amount of online competition. Most businesses on the Internet do. See what their ads look like, and which ones come up most often in a search query that uses the same keywords you intend to use. There is nothing wrong with tailoring your ad to look like that of the competition. If it works for them, it should work for you. But be forewarned: your competitors may do the same to you!

While Pay-per-Click Advertising can be quick to implement and begin producing results immediately, is not a marketing technique that should be entered into lightly by a novice. You are paying every time someone clicks on your ad, and if the PPC campaign is not properly managed, you may incur expensive click charges that would diminish your return on investment (ROI).

Active Web Group's PPC marketing and management specialists are experts at building successful campaigns. We begin with a few carefully selected key words or phrases and constantly analyze and test the results. Active Web Group can assemble a program that brings you the best results for your advertising dollar.

Contact Active Web Group for a Free Pay-per-Click Campaign Analysis!

You might also want to read Pay Per Click Management: Not All PPC Management Services Are Created Equal

Pay Per Click Terms You Need to Know

The world of Internet marketing can be a confusing place for the uninitiated or those relatively new to the Internet itself. But if you wish to attract customers to your website, you need to stop treading water in cyberspace and jump in headfirst to discover the benefits of commonly used online marketing solutions.

Pay Per Click (PPC)

One of the most widely used methods of attracting visitors to your website is called Pay Per Click. This is also more commonly referred to as PPC. With Pay Per Click, you create targeted keyword ads. These are short ads consisting of a short headline and 1-2 lines of copy, and a link.

Keywords

The headline and the copy below it should integrate the best keywords possible that will attract visitors to click on the link, as well as align properly with search engine queries by Internet users.

For example, a Pay Per Click ad might look like this:

New YA Fantasy Novel on Kindle

Download the 1^st 3 chapters free.

Fantasy Novel Only $4.99 on Kindle

http://www.talesoftanglewood.com

The keywords in this ad are “Fantasy novel” and “Kindle.” When individuals search Yahoo, Google, or another search engine for “fantasy novels on the Kindle,” this ad is likely to appear in the sidebar of the search results.

Cost Per Click (CPC)

It costs you nothing to create the ad and have it appear in search results. However, when users click the link in your ad, you will incur a cost. The amount is known as Cost Per Click (CPC) and will vary according to how much you are willing to pay for an ad that utilizes specific keywords. For example “fantasy novel” is likely to be used in a large amount of ads by competitors, and so you would need to place a higher bid on the keywords. This means you are willing to pay more than your competitors each time someone clicks on your ad; it also means your ad will likely appear more often than those of your competitors, and in a better position.

Cost Per Thousand (CPM)

This is another method of payment utilized with PPC ads. It essentially means that you will pay a flat fee for every thousand impressions. An impression is the instance of your ad being shown alongside a search result, regardless of whether it is clicked on or not.

To learn more about Pay Per Click ads and how they can benefit your website, contact Active Web Group for a free Pay Per Click campaign analysis. Active Web Group is Long Island’s leading online marketing solutions agency, with expertise in PPC Management.

Online Marketing Solutions for E-Commerce Websites

Perhaps the most important factor improving the chances of success for an e-commerce site is searchability. A high ranking on search engines gets you noticed faster and more often than the sites of your competitiors. To achieve a high ranking, you can utilize either Search Engine Optimization (SEO), which produces what is known as “organic” results, and search engine marketing such as Pay Per Click (PPC), which achieves what is referred to as “paid” results. and Pay Per Ranking (PPR), which is a specialized SEO technique.

SEO Marketing works by integrating targeted keywords and keyphrases within the content of your website to enable search engines to better understand the relevance of the content of your site to specific targeted search terms.

PPC marketing is a type of online advertising, also utilizing relevant keywords. When a search is conducted related to your keywords, a sponsored ad link will appear alongside organic search results. People who click on the ad will be taken to your website or the landing page you’ve designated, and you will a pay a small fee for the click.

The combination of SEO and PPC can be an extremely powerful and effective marketing campaign.

Pay-per-Ranking is an innovative, cost effective Search Engine Optimization service developed by Active Web Group that allows a business to gauge their online web presence and cut down on their marketing expenses that only requires them to pay for results. Pay-per-Ranking® is an extremely attractive marketing strategy for businesses seeking good search engine rankings within the search engine result pages.

How to Cut Costs of Search Engine Advertising without Cutting Results

When it comes to pay per click advertising it seems that there are those that spend a little and make a fortune and there are those that spend a fortune and make very little. Most of us are aware that those who are successful can find themselves with a very high return on what seems like a brilliant, across the board investment. However, in the face of being realistic we all know that sometimes we just have to find the most fiscally responsible method of advertising.

Pay per Click Decisions

When it comes to making pay per click decisions you have to consider the market, what you have to offer, and whether or not your product or service is even capable of bringing you a great return for your advertising dollar. Not everyone will make a fortune, and it’s wise to know when you should try other forms of advertising. Business suppliers, business to business companies, and highly specialized items don’t always do very well when it comes to pay per click advertising. While you might offer the best restaurant stoves in the industry for your area, pay per click is likely to bring you a lot of homeowner consumers. This demographic will be looking for stoves that are appropriate for their home.

Website Analytics are Worthwhile

Compared to traditional forms of advertising, internet based advertising is very cheap. Consider what it would cost you if your only option was radio or television advertising. That cost alone might be prohibitive enough to prevent you from even having your own business. Yet, because of the exorbitant costs of most media advertising you can usually bet that there is a business owner with a close eye on how well their advertising dollars are serving them.

Perhaps it is because the price tag isn’t forbiddingly high but there seems to be a significant trend among web based business owners. The advertising dollar is spent and then suddenly forgotten about. Many web based business men and women take on web based advertising the same way they take on the slot machines. They toss in their money and then hope for a lucky roll.

Website analytics can help you put in your due diligence, make educated and informed decisions, and then help you draw conclusions about your advertising decisions. In the long run a high quality analytics package can not only save you money when it comes to advertising, but it could literally save your business. Overspending on ineffective advertising, the improper use of keywords, and haphazard advertising can easily be blamed for more than 60% of all failed internet businesses.

Website Optimization before Advertising

There is a connection between your website’s ability to be located on the internet and the effectiveness of your advertising. While many new internet marketers have heard of things like PPC and article marketing, there is a tendency to ignore revving up the site for search engine friendly results.

Keeping your web content search engine friendly not only helps you get found and stay within view of the public, but it also helps to create cohesion between your website and your advertising. Users will be able to tell immediately that the link they’ve clicked is actually taking them to a relevant website. When you’re trying to advertise for less, your website can literally do quite a bit of the work for you.

In order to make your website competitive and to keep it competitive you’re going to have to make sure that it stays visible. You can do this through advertising alone but you’ll find you have much better results when you work your website’s continually updated optimization into your advertising campaign.

What about Budget Caps?

Budget caps are integrated into various advertising programs in order to help keep your campaign within a given budget. On the surface this sounds safe. And it is safe. You will not spend more than you allot when you integrate budget caps into your program. However, there is a significant downside.

The system calculates your budget differently than you might expect. It would make sense that your bids, your keywords, and your campaign would be playing fairly against those without budget caps, but this isn’t true. Just for argument’s sake let’s say you set your budget at $50.

Then let’s say that you have the stars and the moon lining up with you that day and your website link should be in the number two position based on normal calculations. So logic and a sense of fair play would tell us that you should be able to maintain your earned position all day long until you hit your limit. If it took 4 hours to blow through that $50 you might expect to be in the earned position for 4 hours. Then you’d expect you’d pretty much drop out of sight. This is not the way it works at all.

Your budget cap gives the system permission to spread out your results based on the cap. That means even if the sun and moon and stars are all in perfect alignment for you, your site will be listed rather poorly on the results page. It’s much better to make sure that you are able to watch your performance and make adjustments to prevent overspending.

Top Slot Doesn’t Mean Top Earnings

Be wary of trying to bid competitively enough to become one of the “sponsored” listings. Usually, this means bidding very high and it tends to incorporate brand names. Sponsored listings are found either along the side or in highlighted colors at the top. You’ll pay dearly for this position and yet most users ignore these results. They are not considered by most users to be organic results and therefore have less sense of trust from the user. “Sponsored” means to the user that the slot was purchased, and historically these have been seen by the user as advertisements, not web page results. Perception is an interesting thing. By being listed in the top five organic results you save quite a bit on your bid and end up with more visitors.

Don’t Forget the Quality Score

A lot of internet marketers are unaware that the quality score of their ads, which is designated by Adwords, impacts their overall placement. The lower the score is the more you end up paying and yet the less frequent you will find yourself on the results page.

The more you can blend your campaign together with optimization techniques the better your score will reflect. Simply optimizing your landing page can enhance your quality score several points.

Copy Success

We’ve been told all our lives not to copy, to think for ourselves, and to be original when it comes to success. Internet marketing success works backward from that principle. You want to be able to copy the success of others. How do you do this? Simple. Check out the ads that are constantly outperforming everyone else.

You don’t have to become a marketing expert, reinvent the wheel, or create ad copy that is so stellar you are waiting to hear from the Nobel Prize committee. Look at the simple advertisements that are consistently hitting high ranks and you’ll see what you need to do. Adgooroo.com is a simple free site that will allow you to find the relevant information that you need with the simple entry of a keyword. From there, you can build your ads to reflect the same qualities of the most successful advertisements online.

For more information and to speak to someone about cost-effective web marketing solutions and how they can help your business, please visit Active Web Group, Long Islan's leading online marketing solutions agency.