Pay-Per-Click Advertising -- A Method

Pay-Per-Click Advertising -- A Method to the Madness

SYNERGE-marketing issues a specific standard on how a successful Pay-Per-Click Campaign should be created and managed.

Fairfield, CT (PRWEB) March 7, 2008

SYNERGE-marketing has issued a specific standard as to how a Pay-Per-Click campaign should be set up. These are points that should always be followed to ensure the success of any PPC campaign. They are simple and effective. This list was created to assist anyone wishing to engaged in search engine marketing and give them a leg up on the competition.

Pay-Per-Click advertising or PPC, as it is more commonly known, is fast becoming the most compelling online advertising medium. Now, many people think they can just jump right into PPC and just watch the sales roll in. Is it surprising that these are the people who end up spending big money only to never make a sale or generate a lead? No, it isn't surprising in the least. These are people who failed to research the online market for Pay-Per-Click advertising whether it be through Google, Yahoo! or MSN. If wasting thousands of dollars with no return on investment isn't madness, what is?

There are specific methods which should be applied to PPC campaigns, regardless of the industry being targeted. These methods are simple and easy to follow.

1. Always research the industry the PPC campaign focuses on. If enough is not known about the industry being marketed to, money will only be wasted. Take some time to become familiarized with industry terms and phrases. Talk to clients and learn how industry products and services are being searched for.

2. Choose the proper keywords. If all that is being bid on is a list of 150 generic keywords, money will be wasted due to irrelevant clicks. Achieving consistent results is what builds a business and this is done by using "exact match" keywords as well as "phrase matching", filtering out irrelevant traffic.

3. Create ad groups. What this means is, divide your keyword list into segments. For example, if someone had a keyword list for an insurance company of over 100 keywords spanning car insurance, home insurance, life insurance and dental insurance, ad groups for each insurance type should be created. Setting up PPC campaigns in this fashion gives far more control over the advertisements which will be displayed after a search query.

4. Write targeted advertisements. Google as an example allows you only so many characters for each line in an advertisement. The title line must be within 25 characters, the 1st description line must be within 35 characters, as well as the 2nd description line. The display URL for the ad must also be within 35 characters, but the destination URL can be within 1024 characters. These restrictions mean that creativity is needed when choosing how to word an advertisement. It must be catchy and appealing to the eye. Statistics have shown that capitalizing the first letter of each word helps make an ad stand out more.

5. Include keywords in the advertisements. By doing this, the ads will stand out a little more from the competitions. The search engines will often bold keywords in advertisements if they were part of a search query. This lends relevancy to advertisements, helping them attain a better position in the sponsored link area of the search engines while bidding less for keywords than a competitor.

6. Link to pages with relevant content. This is very important, especially with Google. Google likes to see advertisements directing people to pages that have information relevant to the keywords that triggered it. This will also help to gain better positioning while paying less for keywords.

7. Split test. What this means is that advertisements should constantly be changing. Start with three ads for each ad group and every week, take the lowest performing ad and re-write it. When split testing ads, the goal is to increase click-through rates and conversion rates by offering people highly targeted ads.

8. Analyze and refine. This step is one of the most critical ones. Always include some sort of analytics software in websites which are engaging in an internet marketing initiative. This allows monitoring to be done on how people from a PPC campaign are interacting with the site and track where prospective customers are being lost. This information allows for site revisions that will help keep traffic from leaving a website, further increasing conversion rates and lead generation.

While these methods are simple to follow, not all people choose to. Without proper attention to detail, research and without a willingness to follow proven methods, PPC campaigns can easily fail. This is one of many reasons to contract a PPC specialist. These are people who use proven methods and are often certified to do this type of work. When handled by a professional, a PPC campaign can easily give offer a return on investment that will not only cover the advertising costs, but will help grow a business by generating new customers, leads, and revenues.

By Randi Brawley
Copyright © 2008 SYNERGe-Marketing.

http://www.synergemarketing.com

(I get the information as a registered member of PRWEB for publication)