Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing is the paid advertisements above and to the right of the free search results on most search engines. PPC marketing can also include contextual ads shown on relevant web pages.

PPC marketing provides a highly efficient, cost effective, and budget friendly means of driving traffic to your web site.

You have the ability to put your link in front of people at the exact moment they are actively searching for your product or service.

You choose the keywords and phrases you want to advertise on.  You only pay when someone clicks your ad and enters your site. People will find you exactly when they are looking for you.

You can start to place ads on search engines with PPC advertising programs such as Yahoo Search Marketing and Google Adwords.

ESTABLISH GOALS

Before you begin a PPC marketing campaign, make sure you think about what your goals are.

Many people make the mistake of buying traffic and sending it to their home page as a way of introducing people to the site.  Even if people like your site, they most likely will move on and never return to it.  This is a good way to burn through your limited marketing budget extremely fast.

A better goal is to buy traffic from the search engines and get people to take some sort of action.  Send the traffic to a landing page where you are trying to sell something.  This is how most internet entrepreneurs are making money on the web right now.

For example, if you have a gardening site, you will probably lose money if you buy traffic from search engines and send people to the homepage of your gardening site.  However, if you bid on the kewords "buy tulip seeds" and have a landing page all about buying tulip seeds, then some of the people will buy tulip seeds from you.  In addition, some of the people will look around your site and sign-up for your gardening newsletter.

SET UP YOUR PPC CAMPAIGNS EFFICIENTLY

Once you have signed up for a PPC account, you will create your first advertising campaign. 

Instead of choosing a lot of keywords to bid on, choose only one keyword for each campaign.  This will allow your ads to be extremely targeted.  This will also allow you to know which campaigns/keywords are generating the most traffic and getting the best results in terms of conversions.  You will be able to create a campaign for each keyword and phrase you are trying to target. It is better to have 100 targeted campaigns rather than having one large campaign with 100 keywords in it.

There are some cases where building a large keyword list in a specific campaign might be your goal.  This is ok in some cases, but this strategy is often used to attract lots of traffic with less emphasis on specific targeting and tracking.

BID PRICES AND CAMPAIGN LIMITS

You don't want to lose all of your money when you are just getting started.  To avoid this, make sure you set a reasonable campaign budget and use reasonable bid prices.  Some of the more popular keywords will probably be out of your league when you first begin.  You won't have the conversion rate to justify paying a couple of dollars for each click.  To avoid these high prices, try bidding smaller amounts on less popular keywords.

As you get more familiar with PPC marketing, you will have a better idea of how much you can afford to bid for each keyword. 

SEARCH TRAFFIC VS. CONTENT TRAFFIC

Search traffic is generated from ads placed on search engines. 

Content traffic is from ads placed on websites. 

Most PPC programs offer both.  

Search traffic is better and costs more because people are actively searching for what you are offering.  Create separate campaigns for search and content traffic.  You will notice a difference in prices and conversion rates. 

Search traffic can be broken down into broad, exact, and phrase matching options.  Broad matching means your ad will appear if the keyword you bid on appears in the search.  If you bid on the keyword "dominos" your ad will show up no matter if people search for "play dominos" or "dominos pizza."  Exact matching means your ad will only appear if your keyword or phrase is searched for with no other words added.  If you bid on the word "dominos" your ad will only show up if people search for "dominos."  Phrase matching means your ad will only show if the exact phrase is contained somewhere in the search.  If you bid on "play dominos" your ad will show up if someone searches for "how to play dominos" of "play dominos with friends." 

Most search engines will allow you to use negative keywords.  This means that you can tell the search engines you don't want your ad to be shown if a certain keyword is used.  So you might have a campaign that targets "ringtones" but you don't want your ad to be shown if people also use the word "free" in their search.  This is also helpful if you want to sell "fly fishing poles" but don't want your ad shown to people who want to "make fly fishing poles."  Just add the word "make" to your negative keyword list.

Search traffic can come from the search engine you are advertising with and also from partner search engines.  Google and Yahoo both have partner search engines they show advertisements on.  You will often get different click through rates and conversion rates from the search partners.  Most PPC programs allow you to turn off the partner sites.  Otherwise, submit the domain name of the poorly erforming search partners to block your ads from being shown on those sites.

With content traffic, you can request that your ads are shown only on specific websites with site targeting options.  Make sure you watch your reports and understand which websites are sending you the best traffic.   

TEST LOTS OF AD VERSIONS

Create and test many ads for each campaign.  The smallest changes in the words of the ad can make a huge difference in the click through and conversion rates you will get.  "Fishing Poles" as your title may not perform as well as having "Buy Fly Fishing Poles" as your title. 

Start by creating four or five ads.  After a few thousand impressions, you will get an idea of which ads are performing well.  Delete the other ads and create new ads similar to the ads that are working well.  Keep doing this as you try to improve your click through and conversion rates.

One of the best strategies is to put the keyword you are bidding on in the title and text of your ad.  Most search engines will highlight or bold these keywords within your ad. 

If you have a local product or store, put your zip code or phone number in the ad to show people you are a local option.

GOOGLE ADWORDS QUALITY SCORE

In the past, ads were shown on search engines based on the amount your were bidding and the click through rate you achieved.  Now, PPC programs are starting to consider many factors in determining what ads will be shown.

Google AdWords has implemented a "quality score" to determine what ads are shown on the Google search engine.  Google considers many factors such as: your bid price, click through rate, page content, relevancy, site trust factors, privacy policy, page load times, etc... to determine which ads are shown on on the Google search engine.  Not only does this make it more difficult to advertise on Google, but the quality score is an evolving standard so the game continues to change.  

SEND TRAFFIC TO A GOOD LANDING PAGE

Once you create a campaign that is generating traffic, send the traffic to a targeted landing page.

Your landing page should be targeted specifically to the keyword you are bidding on.  Put the keyword in the title of the landing page to immediately let people know they made it to the right place.

Have a distinct call to action on your landing page.  You are bringing the traffic to the page for a specific reason.  Make sure the call to action is noticeable and clickable.  You will need to test this call to action just as you test the ads used to bring traffic to your page.

One of the best strategies for a landing page is to provide some sort of value.  You can present the features and benefits of buying a specific product or create a comparison page to show the customer what their options are.  You need your visitors to be interested in your landing page so they will stay long enough to find and decide to click your call to action.  To achieve this, create a page that looks trustworthy and funnels your visitors toward clicking your call to action. 

As with everything on the web, you will need to test your landing page and make changes in order to improve your conversion rates.  The smalles changes in the words or style of your call to action can dratically alter your conversion rates.  Google web optimizer is a good tool for testing the effectiveness of changes you make to your landing page.

SET UP CONVERSION TRACKING

In ordcer to know how effective your PPC campaigns are, you need to set up conversion tracking.  There are many options for doing this.  Most PPC search engines some sort of conversion tracking tools.  You will be given a piece of code to place on the goal page of your website.  This might be a thank you page shown after someone signs-up for a newsletter, a new member confirmation page, or a sale completion/receipt page. 

If you are using affiliate marketing programs, conversion tracking gets a little more difficult.  You will see how many click throughs and sales are being generated, but you won't know which specific campaigns and keywords your sales are coming from unless you convince the affiliate manager to place your code on the merchant's sales page.

By knowing your conversion rates, you will be able to calculate the return on investment you are getting from your PPC efforts.  This will help you determine how much you are able to bid on keywords while remaining profitable.   

GO BEYOND THE BASICS

Most of the people making money online are masters at buying PPC traffic from the search engines. 

It is a game and a business that must be practiced and researched in order for success to be achieved.

The first thing to do is to follow the official blogs of the PPC search engines such as the Inside AdWords blog and the Yahoo Search Marketing Blog. 

Search the web for news and information about current PPC marketing trends and tips.  Since the PPC search engines continue to improve and enhance their programs, an ongoing educational effort on your part is required.

If you find new information or have questions about PPC marketing, be sure to participate in the forum on this site.

Don't give up if you have poor results in your first few weeks.  Start small and slow and don't burn through your entire budget within the first few weeks.  You will need to spend some time and money just figuring out how to buy traffic.  Then you will need to spend some time and money figuring out how to convert that traffic into revenue.  The better you become at doing this, the more money you will make online.

DON'T FORGET! 

Some people get so involved with the process of buying PPC traffic that they forget to build a good site that people will return to.  Remember, even though money can be made by buying traffic into targeted sales pages, this is a short-term strategy.  If the search engines change their policies and you can no longer buy traffic, your business will be at risk of failing pretty quickly.  Always remember the long-term goal of creating a quality site people will remember and return to. 

If you have any questions, ask them in the forum

NEXT: Test Results, Make Changes