Etips is a publication of:
Your Guide to Professional Web
Site Design and Development
| Issue: |
#143 |
| Date: |
July 1, 2003 |
| Circulation: |
31,838 |
| Publisher: |
Shelley Lowery |
| Email: |
admin@web-source.net |
| Etips: |
|
Hello,
Welcome to this week's edition of Etips!
As you may have noticed, Etips wasn't published last week. You also may have
noticed that Web-Source.net was down for a few days. The site had to be moved
to a new server, as it was consuming too many system resources. In other
words, we've been experiencing some growing pains:) I apologize to those
displaying the syndicated content. Everything is now back up and running.
In today's edition of Etips, I will be featuring an informative article entitled,
Creating an Effective Pay-Per-Click Campaign, written by Angela Wu.
As we just completed a
ten
part series focusing on developing a professional web site, Angela's
article will take that series one step further and assist you in driving
traffic to your site.
I hope you'll enjoy this week's edition of Etips.
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Instead of theory, Patrick and Michael tell you how to do it, what to do,
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Creating an Effective Pay-Per-Click Campaign
© Copyright 2003, Angela
Wu
Optimizing your website for the
'traditional' search engines can be a daunting task, and one that many people
are either unable or unwilling to attempt. Fortunately, pay-per-click search
engines (PPC SEs) allow us to specify exactly what key phrases we want to
be listed under -- for a price.
In brief, you simply "bid" on the key phrases you want. Your bid indicates
how much you're willing to pay for a click on your link - in other words,
every time someone clicks your link, you pay 10 cents or whatever you bid
on that particular search term. The highest bidder gets placed at the top
of the search results, the second highest bidder gets the next listing, and
so on. It's a quick way to get exactly the search terms you want.
Obviously you want to maximize the effectiveness of your pay-per-click campaign
since you're paying for traffic! Here are a few tips to get you started:
__1. Know Your Website's Conversion Rate.
What percentage of unique visitors to your website actually make a purchase?
For instance, a website that makes 1 sale for every 100 visitors has a conversion
rate of 1%.
Although the quality of visitors you get from a pay-per- click search engine
may be higher or lower than what you normally get through other marketing
means, knowing your CR will give you a "baseline" to help determine how high
you're willing to bid.
For example, let's say your conversion rate is 1%. Based on this, you need
100 clicks on your link to make 1 sale. That's $10 if your bid is 10 cents/click.
Figure out whether or not your profit margin is sufficiently high enough
to justify the cost. If so, are you willing to go spend even more to get
your link displayed higher in the search results and possibly generate more
clicks and sales? Will the additional sales justify the extra cost?
__2. Target the RIGHT Key Phrases.
The goal is to drive traffic and sales to your website. Choosing the right
key phrases is therefore critical: if you choose a search term that no one
uses, you won't get any traffic. If you choose the wrong key phrase you may
end up with visitors who aren't really interested in your products and services.
Use Overture's Search Term
Suggestion
Tool to help you research the appropriate key phrases for your
business.
__3. Qualify the Visitor Before He Clicks On Your Link.
You pay every time someone clicks your link, so make sure he's a qualified
visitor! Make good use of your title and description to encourage visitors
who are specifically looking for a product or service like yours, while
discouraging people who are "just curious".
For instance, you may sell professional website templates -- but some people
are only interested in free templates they can use for personal websites
or small projects. These are the people you don't want to attract.
__4. Spend Time Writing Good Titles and Descriptions.
Create titles and descriptions specifically for each of your search terms.
They should "speak" directly to the type of visitor you're catering to. For
instance, if you sell a variety of golf clubs, you might bid on used golf
club, discount golf club, and ladies golf club. Use each
of these terms in the title and description to help catch the prospect's
attention.
__5. Send the Visitor Directly
to a "Sales" Page.
Instead of linking to your home page where the visitor may be presented with
a variety of choices, link to a page which asks the visitor to complete just
one action. That doesn't necessarily mean you have to send them to a page
where they're asked to make a purchase; you can also direct visitors to your
newsletter subscription page, or a page where they're asked to answer a
survey.
__6. Consider Using the Smaller PPC SEs.
Overture is the best-known and most popular of the pay-per-click search engines.
However, you can still benefit from the smaller ones as well, such as 7Search
or FindWhat. Even though you may not get the same amount of traffic as you
would from Overture, your money isn't "wasted" since you still only pay for
actual clicks on your link. In fact, the bids are usually far lower on the
smaller PPC SEs. Take advantage of the cheaper traffic.
__7. Find the Bid Position that Offers the Best Value.
Many people try to get the #1 listing for their search phrase. While the
links in the top three positions may get the most traffic, you can still
get good traffic from links on the first few pages. Some people even argue
that these visitors are more qualified -- they took the time to read your
link and are interested in what you have to offer. They didn't just click
your link because it happened to be the first one.
Another thing to watch for are bid gaps. As an example, at the time
of writing, Overture shows the following bids for the search phrase golf
clubs:
Position #1 - 54 cents/click
Position #2 - 50 cents/click
Position #3 - 41 cents/click
Positions #4 and #5 - 40 cents/click
Position #6 - 33 cents/click
Most of the above bids are separated by several cents per click... if you
wanted position #3, you could bid 42 cents (be sure to read the bids above
AND below the position you want... otherwise, in this example you could end
up paying 49 cents/click for position #3!). However, position #6 is available
for a mere 34 cents. That may not seem like much when you're just looking
at a single click, but that's a difference of $8 for every 100 clicks! Your
savings can add up quickly. You have to decide whether the extra cost is
worth being higher up in the search results.
Pay-per-click search engines may not be the cheapest way to promote your
online business, but they can be a very effective part of your overall marketing
plan. Remember that it's not how much you spend that's so important, but
rather how much return you get on your investment!
About the
Author:
Angela is the editor of Online
Business Basics, a practical guide to marketing a business on a beginner's
budget. This guide offers loads of instantly useable tips and links, in a
down-to-earth style that even marketing "newbies" can understand! A helpful
Online Business Dictionary is included too... visit:
http://onlinebusinessbasics.com/article.html |
|
| Tip of
the Week |
 |
If you would like to format
your heading text, you can do so with the Heading tags. Heading tags are
used to separate topics and range from <H1> being very large and bold
to <H6>, which is very small and bold. Consider using at least one
towards the top of your page, as some Search Engines place relevance on text
displayed within a heading
tag.
Today's tip is an excerpt from the highly acclaimed
Web Design Mastery series.
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