Search Engine Advertising is such a gamble!
Paid Search Advertising is the way that many businesses large and small get their brand seen and products/services sold. The problem is that many small business owners that run their own ppc campaigns feel as if it is a gamble. Like they are betting their money on the odds that their website hits home with someone and makes them the money needed.
How to get the odds in your favor with paid search advertising
More clicks, less cost – The more clicks, the more potential for sales. Getting your cost-per-click down will get you more clicks for your monthly budget. Lower your CPC by using keywords in your ad copy, increase the use of keywords on your landing page, and lower your bid to the lowest possible for front page results.
Research and target your audience – Understanding your audience explicitly allows you to save money by targeting specifically searchers who fall in your target range. You can use bid increments, exclusions, and negative keywords to better specify your target audience, and pay only for clicks with the most potential for conversion.
Disable Search and use the Content/Display Network – Using the Display (Google) or Content (Bing/Yahoo!) networks for paid advertising instead of advertising directly in search can save you a lot of money on each click. From my own personal experience, I can get hundreds of clicks a day for less than $0.70/click in a highly-competitive market and make conversions. This is a market where search clicks run $10-$25/click in search.
Optimize your landing page for sales – Spend time researching competitor landing pages, keywords, and audiences. Build your landing pages to according to what you see most common. Try 3-4 different landing pages a month for optimal performance. After a few months choose your best performers and run those for a highly efficient campaign.
Accompany your Paid Search Strategies with SEO and Social Media
Don’t count on your PPC, SEO, or Social Media campaigns to determine all of the traffic that comes to your site. Build your own small-time SEO and SMM campaigns for your business and implement them. Get resources from the Fresh Web SEO blog and other blogs to help you along you way. This will drive FREE traffic to your website and help in your campaign.
Use Conversion Tracking and Analytics for all campaigns – Conversion tracking allows you to track visitors who have completed a specific action on your website such as making a purchase or filling out a form. This is critical in deciding what campaigns, landing pages, and ads are performing best for you. Using Google’s Analytics program is free and allows you to track your visitor’s behavior while on your website. This is important in tracking how well your website is coming across to your visitors and should be monitored regularly.
Email Marketing you may not have to pay for – Email marketing can prove very beneficial for your business when you get visitors to sign up for your promotional mailing list or newsletter. Usually mailing list distribution programs are paid for, but using MailChimp, it is free up to 2000 emails a month. Great service. Allows analytics tracking, reports, and much more. Couldn’t recommend it more to anyone on a budget.
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Article by Pierre Zarokian of Submit Express. If you need help with PPC Advertising Services or SEO Services, visit www.submitexpress.com.