Pay Per Click Tips

By Alice Seba
April 2004

Instead of jumping into a pay-per-click campaign and immediately blowing a ton of cash, keep these pay per click tips in mind:

1. Check your ego at the door! Sometimes it's tempting to get into a bidding battle, just for the pure competition...don't do it! It's not worth it.

2. Calculate your profit on the items you are advertising. If you only make a dollar or two per sale, it may not be worth starting a pay-per-click campaign.

3. Calculate your conversion rate. Check your website statistics and find out how many clicks it takes to make a sale. This will help you determine how much you can afford to pay per click. 

Let's say you have an item that gives you $15 profit. It takes you 100 clicks to get a sale. This means you could bid 15 cents per click to break even. Of course, a targeted pay-per-click campaign will likely give you a better conversion rate, so keep that in mind.

4. Make a budget and stick with it. If you can't afford more than 7 cents per click, don't bid higher. There are always more targeted keywords to be found. And remember, even if you aren't on the first page, you will still get clicks. Perhaps, not as often...but you will still get clicks even if you are 3 pages in, especially on frequently searched phrases.

5. Make or use special landing pages for your campaigns. If you have an online gift shop with a variety of items and you are bidding on "blueberry scented candles", don't send them to your home page. They may not be able to find the blueberry scented candles and that's what they are looking for.

6. Write different ads for different products. If you are bidding on the terms "Spongebob Toy" and "Blue's Clue's Toy", write separate ads that will capture the attention of the searcher.

Imagine if you were searching for "Spongebob toy" yourself and you saw and ad that said:

"Spongebob Discount Toys...."

and then you saw another that said:

"Nick Toys on Sale"

wouldn't you more likely click on the Spongebob ad?

7. Target your keywords. This is so critical. If you don't target, you'll waste your money. You want each person who clicks through to do something when they get to your website, right? Whether it be:

- subscribe to your newsletter
- buy your product
- fill out a lead form

always keep it in mind. Put yourself in the mind of the searcher.

8. Use the keyword research tools provided. Most pay-per-clicks will show you related phrases that are searched for. You can also do searches with WordTracker which will give you even more keyword possibilities.

9. Use negative keywords where possible. Google AdWords allows you to specify which word should NOT be included in your campaign. For example, if you are bidding on:

- crystal bracelet
- crystal and pearl pin
- flower pins

and you sell them at retail. You may want to use the negative keywords of "free" and "wholesale" for example. That way, your ad wouldn't show up when people are looking for "free crystal bracelet" or "wholesale flower pins".

10. Use phrase match and exact match, where possible. Google AdWords allows you to ensure that your ads appear only when you want them to. You can specify if you only want your ad to appear when the exact phrase is entered without any extra words (exact match) or the exact phrase with extra words allowed (phrase match).

Put quotation marks:

" "

around the phrases you want phrase match for.

Put brackets:

[ ]

around the phrase you want exact phrase match for.

AdWords Wrapper is a free time saving tool that wraps keyword phrases in "quotation marks" (phrase match) and [square brackets] (exact match) for use in Google AdWords campaigns. 

8. Capitalize on spelling errors. Find common misspellings for words. You'll find those have lower bids and may be entered frequently.

Google Keyword Sandbox and WordTracker allow you to find misspellings.

Get Your Free Goodies & Do Your Own Pay per Click Comparison

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Other Pay Per Click Articles

> What is a Pay per Click Search Engine?
> Who Has the Best Pay per Click?
> Pay per Click Tips
> Pay per Click Comparison : Google AdWords vs. Overture

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Alice Seba is a Web Writer and Marketing Specialist who loves to share Internet Business secrets. Claim your free subscription to Serious Online Business Learning to get all the juicy Internet marketing tidbits.