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If you’re ready to enter the exciting world of online advertising, congratulations! Pay per click ad sponsorship through Google Adwords especially is a cost-effective way to promote your Web site, and if run well your campaigns can increase traffic and customers to your business. Knowing the steps to running a successful ad program will assist in getting the most for your daily spends – that means not only creating quality ads but knowing where to present them and through which keywords you wish to advertise.

For novices in the PPC game, there are several Web sites available for detailed instructions on launching an eye-catching campaign. Ultimately, though, most advise on good paid marketing boils down to these five important tips to ensure you get the most out of your money.

Maintain focus on Google’s search network – To attract the people you know are searching for your relevant keywords, you want to be sure you place your ads where the search happens. Buying space through Adsense, where ads are placed on similar Web sites, can increase visibility and awareness of your brand, but ultimately the bulk of your referrals are going to come from where people are actively searching for information. Concentrate on the search network to build your audience.

Know your target audiences and how to sell to them – Think about your business: do you cater mainly to the people in your immediate geographic area, or do you serve a broader base that extends throughout the country? If the latter, more than likely you create different ads for print campaign to attract different demographics. The same practice should apply to your PPC ads. Campaigns for local, regional, and national audiences should be created separately because you will use different keywords to attract customers and clients.

Separate Ad Groups for maximum performance – If your business deals in multiple services, for example a restaurant that also caters events and retails food products, you will want to separate each facet of your company into its own ad group on Adwords. Each group should focus on one aspect, and perhaps further split the available services – a group for dining in, a group for catering weddings, a group for catering reunions, and so forth – to better draw in traffic from paid search. Be sure, too, to have a proper landing page prepared for each group to increase the quality of your ads.

Generate keywords! As you prepare your campaigns, you may have a specific number in mind. Here is where you can have some fun and take advantage of Google’s keyword tool to help you generate multitudes of probable searches. Don’t limit yourself when you make your bids, for even the most obvious search phrases may not bring in the traffic you’d expect. The more keywords you use for an ad group, the better you can test what works and what doesn’t for your advertising.

Test different ads for effective marketing – You wouldn’t use the same ad over and again for different print campaigns, so the same rings true for Adwords. Create at least two different ads per group and study their performances, tweaking as necessary to build click-throughs.

Take note of these tips as you begin your PPC advertising, and make good use of the free tools available through Google Adwords to help with your success. You just may find online advertising will quickly pay for itself.

Kathryn Lively is a freelance writer specializing in articles on local PPC advertising and professional SEO writing services.

One concern expressed by clients employing a service to handle their Google AdWords PPC advertising is the question of spreading campaigns too thinly. For companies and businesses dealing in multiple ventures, especially, are aware of their budgets and interested in maximizing pay per click ads to the best use, while at the same they want to be certain the money is spent wisely. When you consider how companies budget advertising in other media, the realm of online advertising offers a bit of diversity, and it can be easy to get lost in multiple campaigns.

When to Consider Multiple Campaigns in AdWords

Say you operate a retail business specializing in collectibles. Between trading cards and action figures, plush toys and autographs, you have a wide range of keywords on which to draw when planning online ads. A general ad for your collectibles store may not attract the level of traffic you desire when you consider that collectors will use the Internet to search for specific objects, so in this case it is good to have different campaigns highlighting your products.

• Sports cards
• Sports memorabilia
• Plush toys
• Dolls
• Movie memorabilia

On the other hand, if your business is limited to two primary purposes or products, there may not be a need spread out your advertising dollars. The owner of a camping store, for example, may wish to focus on ads detailing camping equipment in general, as customers searching for these items are apt to buy several different things for a trip.

One Ad Per Keyword?

In order to retain high quality ratings in Google (and consequently lower bid prices on desired keywords), PPC managers will keep keyword bids as close to the ad text as possible. The more relevant the keywords are to the ad, naturally the less you will be charged as Internet users click through to your site (or a landing page tailored to your ad). This may beg the question: how detailed should your keyword lists be? Going back to the sports collectibles example, if you only deal in baseball cards, do you want to split your campaign into several ads, each representing a different team:

• Atlanta Braves keywords for an Atlanta Braves card ad
• New York Yankees keywords for a Yankees card ad
• and so on…

In the realm of PPC advertising, there really are no right or wrong answers, as each company must tailor ad plans to suit their budgets and other needs. The best recourse is to experiment with campaigns and ads, monitoring closely to see where the successes happen. The more you learn about how AdWords can work for you, the better return on investment you’re likely to see.

If you are new to pay per click advertising, chances are you haven’t quite grasped the lingo associated with it. You may be aware that as you bid on keywords relevant to your business, your goal is to spend as little money as possible for the highest visibility for your ads. The better the quality of your ad, the more affordable PPC becomes for your campaigns. Click-throughs from the ads to your site are recorded to give you an idea of how well the ads perform, but there is another statistic you should study as you spend. This is the conversion rate.

What is a PPC Conversion Rate?

When an Internet user sees your ad and clicks through to your site, you have a visitor. When that same visitor performs a function on your website, such as purchase a product or fill out a form, you have a conversion. A conversion is a goal you set for your website, and as a PPC program like Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing can record visits and money spent, they can be set up to track activity by all users come to visit via the paid ads. A conversion need not be an actual sale, but can record a variety of actions you wish to see accomplished by site visitors:

• Signing up to an opt-in newsletter
• Filling out an online form for information
• Registering online for an event
• Downloading a PDF document or freeware
• Registering to a message board

As each task is completed, the conversion is recorded and your PPC management dashboard will note the conversion rate compared with the actual number of visits to your site from the paid ads. Most PPC programs will allow you to set more than one conversion goal to track for your campaigns, so you can compare which ads are more effective achieving the results you want for your site and business.

What should your conversion goal be? Consider your website and how you want it to function for you. If you sell online, most assuredly actual purchases are one goal to attain. Collecting customer information for future promotions could be another. If you run a non-profit, you may wish to track visitors who leave information or sign an online petition. Only you know for certain what your site should do for you.

As for what is a good conversion rate, this is also dependent on the type of work and the scope of your business. A small company garnering a 1% conversion might not look successful, but if you factor how much is spent and how many ads are distributed, this small percentage could easily compare to a larger site enjoying a 6% rate. In short, as businesses have different models, so will the mark of success differ. Determine what is good for you and work from there. Hiring the expertise of a PPC management firm can help you plan a conversion goal strategy that works for you.

K. Lively

As you plan your pay per click campaign, whether your budget ranges from fifty to several hundred dollars a month, it is important to consider the destination of potential visitors via Google AdWords, Yahoo Search, or anywhere else you set up shop. The saying holds true, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. You can bid on the most common keywords relevant to your business, wow browsers with a compelling ad, but if the resulting website is confusing or unrelated to the pitch, you risk losing the sale and repeat business.

It can be argued that from this line of thought the concept of “landing pages” became popular with site owners. Create an ad campaign around a specific product that represents one part of your overall site, then mock up a special webpage relevant just to that information. Say you run an online sporting goods store and wish to promote baseball equipment because it’s your biggest selling line. Rather than direct potential buyers to a general front page, you might want to construct an all baseball category showcasing the equipment and lead visitors directly there. This saves potential customers time in searching through your site, but it can also help you with your advertising budget.

As prices on keywords fluctuate, you will find you will pay one price on a keyword depending on it’s popularity and the relevancy of your site content. Particularly with Google AdWords, this holds true. Optimize a landing page to match the content of your ad, and you increase the chances for a high quality score with Google. In the long run, this could make your PPC budget more managable, and you’ll get more for your advertising dollar.

How much information goes on a landing page geared for click-through visitors? Optimize it as you would any normal page on your site. Especially if you are in e-commerce, you want the point of sale positioned no more than a click away from the main content. You have captured your audience with this content, and you do not want to lose them through a endless series of unnecessary linkage.

Plan your PPC campaigns as you would plan the creation of a whole new site. Keep landing pages for your ads topical and easily navigible. Attract the customers and land the sale.

K. Lively

The recession is cutting into the price advertisers are willing to pay to show their ads on search engines, according to a report released Tuesday.

Advertisers bid to have their ads shown next to search results, paying only when people actually click on the ad, but on average, this cost per click (CPC) in the United States is declining on all three major search engines, according to a study by Efficient Frontier. Comparing the first quarter of 2009 to the fourth quarter of 2008, Google’s CPC dropped 14 percent, Yahoo’s dropped 16 percent, and Microsoft’s dropped 28 percent.

Read more from CNET.

So you have decided it’s time to embark on a pay per click campaign to advertise your website and business. Wonderful! PPC has proven to be a cost effective, highly visible method of marketing products and services. Depending on the scope of your business, it is possible to bid for high positions in Google Adwords and Yahoo! Search Marketing for pennies a day. The question of whether or not Internet users will click through your ads, however, depends on a number of factors – the primary being the name you wish to present to visitors.

Do a search in Google, and take a look at the ads that appear on the right hand side. Let’s say somebody is looking for baseball cards and uses that exact phrase to find a dealer. The results that show in search may range from strict card dealers, to collectibles shops that buy and sell all types of card, to even major auction sites like eBay. A look at the URLs presented is a good exercise in determining whether or not you should use a generic URL name – one that utilizes you preferred keywords – as opposed to a more business-oriented domain.

A recent PPC study on URLs found that users are more likely to click through an ad with a generic domain. The repeated use of the keywords, in the ad text and URL, may be factor in a user’s decision to explore said sites. That the click-throughs eventually convert visitors to buyers remains to be seen, but in order to have buyers the site must bring in the traffic.

Businesses may buy generic domain names as a means of improving organic SEO, and use of said URLs in pay per click advertising can prove beneficial. Even if the URL is not connected to your main page, but set up as a satellite site for the purpose of catering to PPC traffic, you have the opportunity to gauge the success of your campaigns. If you sell baseball cards, or offer accounting or housecleaning services, purchasing a domain name relevant to your line of work can help improve the performance of your online advertising.

If your business targets a local or regional audience, the addition of localized keywords may especially boost interest of the people you want visiting your site. The accountant interested in serving clients in his immediate area may want to purchase a domain that combines his city and job. He might find a boost in his PPC traffic in addition to organic SEO efforts.

Before you implement your PPC ads, take the time to consider the name you’ll present to potential clients and customers. If you have a brand not yet as recognizable as major companies, defining yourself with a keyword-driven URL may be the ticket to bring traffic to your site.

Austin, Texas (PRWEB) March 3, 2009 — In Civil Action case No. A-07-Ca-615-LY of The College Network Inc. v. Moore Educational Publishing Inc., jurors rejected the argument that pay-per-click bidding on registered trademarks constitutes infringement. The College Network alleged that the defendant, doing business as iStudySmart.com, was infringing upon their registered trademark by placing pay-per-click bids on the words “college” and “network”.

Arguing before the United States District Court, Western District in Austin, The College Network sought $150,000 in lost profits, claiming the defendant’s pay-per-click advertising practices gave them an undue advantage and lured away customers.

“Bidding on a competitor’s registered trademark has become common practice in the search engine marketing (SEM) industry,” said Troy Perkins, founder of Totus Internet Visibility Agency, San Antonio TX. Providing testimony as an objective, expert witness, Perkins gave an online demonstration to show the jury how keyword bidding enables companies to gain first page ranking with companies of like products.

iStudySmart, represented by Cindy Olson Bourland of Merica and Bourland P.C. law firm, denied the infringement allegations. Bourland argued that the defendant’s pay-per-click bidding does not constitute “use in commerce” under the Lanham Act; and therefore could not be construed as an infringement. Additionally, Bourland challenged the validity of the plaintiffs’ trademark pointing to the generic nature of their corporate name, “The College Network”.

After lengthy deliberations, the jury concluded that “The College Network” is a valid trademark, but the defendant did not infringe upon it with their keyword bids.

“Jurors ruled in favor of my client partly because of the internet demonstration of expert witness Troy Perkins,” said Bourland. “He was able to show the jury online evidence that the plaintiff was using the same pay-per-click practices against my client. This exposed The College Network as a larger company intimidating a smaller competitor in order to reduce competition on the first page of search results.”

“There have been several similar rulings upholding the right for advertisers to bid against their competitors as part of their strategic internet advertising, including Geico v. Google,” said Perkins. “The real winner in these cases is the consumer because fewer restrictions in SEM mean more competitors on the first page of search results. This makes certain that companies will have to compete based on the quality and price of their products.”

In spite of the growing number of SEM lawsuits, no law has been established to settle the issue. “One of the obstacles in drafting a law to regulate search engine marketing is that the term “use in commerce” originated in 1946, said Cindy Bourland of Merica and Bourland law firm in Austin Texas. “Therefore determining how it applies to internet advertising practices is a difficult issue to resolve, especially in a way that will satisfy all stakeholders.”

Proponents of restricting pay-per-click advertising argue that bidding on trademarks enables advertisers to freeload on the branding and marketing investments of their competitors by making a relatively small investment in search engine marketing. Advertisers and search engines who oppose restrictions argue that placing a pay-per-click bid on a registered trademark is not “use in commerce”. They assert that the bid is invisible to the consumer who can clearly identify the company they are actually doing business with.

Headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, Totus Internet Visibility Agency provides internet marketing services which optimize website traffic and online sales. Services include but are not limited to search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), social media optimization (SMO), internet marketing strategy developments, and search engine friendly eCommerce website solutions.

The key to a successful pay per click campaign lies in knowing which search terms to bid upon, how much to spend, and knowing which search terms are best relevant to your site. City PPC offers a range of pay-per-click and paid advertising services, and will work with you to determine the best methods for spending your allotted online marketing budget. Whether you want a national reach or wish only to advertise locally, we have the tools and know-how to turn click-throughs to profit.

We are a Google Adwords Qualified Professional company, and also work with Yahoo Search Marketing, MSN adCenter, and Facebook Ads. Contact us today at 757-499-1990 to schedule your free PPC analysis and learn how we can help devise a successful PPC campaign for your website.