Pay Per Click Search Engines

Pay Per Click Search Engines are without question, the fastest and most cost effective way to generate immediate traffic to your site, regardless if you're a newbie or a seasoned veteran at online marketing.

Today, I am going to discuss all the attributes of using pay-per-click advertising and give you some useful tips to save yourself some money.

What is a -Pay per Click- search engine?
Well, simply, it is very much like an auction site, where you bid against other marketers for top placement under your selected keywords. You control where you want to be placed based on the keyword(s) you have chosen and price you are willing to pay.

How does the system work?
You prepay a set dollar figure into their account system. Each time a visitor clicks on your advertisement link, you pay the bid price you agreed on. The search engine's system will automatically deduct that amount from your ongoing balance. Obviously, the keywords need to be inline with the theme of your product. The goal here is to pick keywords that represent your product directly or indirectly so when someone is doing a search they use one of your keywords to conduct this search with.

For example, if your trying to advertise your info product that focuses on golfing tips, you can bid for the #1 placement (or any other placement for that matter- it depends on your budget and personal preference) under the keyword golf, golfing, golfers.

To achieve the top position, you will have to outbid the person currently holding the top position. This can be as easy as bidding one cent more than the current top ranker is paying. In a day or so your ad will be on top. The bid rates are clearly shown against each AD position of each page.

Let's look at another example and the steps you would take. Say you sell a Tax Secrets book.

Step 1- Make a list of all possible keywords that relate to your product.
When your making your list, remember to put yourself in the place of the individual sitting at their computer at home getting ready to surf for information related to taxes.

Put together a list of 100 different keywords.

Secret # 1
Be creative and you can save yourself a lot of money. Don't go after the obvious big-ticket, most popular keywords, like taxes. You will pay an arm and a leg for it. Go after a bunch of niche keywords and you will pay a heck of a lot less and still get great placement. For example, the keyword golf may cost 70 cents per click while the keyword golfing may only cost 35 cents a hit. Need some help creating the right keywords? I recommend checking out this free software at: http://www.goodkeywords.com 

You see my point.

This step is the most important step because without the proper keywords nobody will find your product advertisement, so take you time with this and don't rush it. I'll take a week to create a list of 100 effective keywords to use. You may be asking yourself, why a whole week? It is because we all have days where we are more creative or imaginative than other days.

Step 2- Create your advertisement.
The guidelines are clear on each search engine. Your actual text description will be limited to approx. 200 characters in length, so write a couple of dozen different ones and always plug your keywords into your description.

And of course, create a killer headline (title) or you can forget about anyone reading your description.

Step 3- Review the bid prices for top rankings under your chosen keywords. It is very important you know your numbers before starting your bid process. What do I mean by this? You MUST know your break-even point so you will then know what your bid price limit needs to be to make a profit. I use a purchase conversion rate of 1 percent. Others use different number schemes but this is mine based on my own statistics.

What this means is if 100 people click through to my site only 1 percent of them will purchase. So say you spend $50 for those 100 visitors, or($2 a lead), and you make one sale. Now figure out your net profit.

You sold a book for $47. It cost you $10 to produce. It also cost you $50 for pay per click lead generation. The end result is: You lost money- $27.  This is a simple hypothetical example but what it tells you is that your bid price must bring you a positive return or your wasting time and money.

Hopefully this helps you see what I mean when I say - know your numbers FIRST, before you start bidding. Don't get caught up in any egotistical bidding just to claim the top slot because the bottom line is what dictates what you should be bidding and paying for each click through.


Secret # 2
You know what I do when bidding on keyword placement. I pay for the 7th or 8th spot on the first page. Only the first page though. This gets me the best keywords on my list at a great price. Here's why I call it a secret.

Human psychology. People will, by human nature, scroll down to the bottom of a page just to see what's at the bottom. Think about how you read an advertisement. It has been tested and proven for a fact that next to the headline of an ad or sales letter, the most popular read part is the bottom paragraph, namely the PS notation. The only downside to this is if your not listed in what's called premium listings (the top 3) you can't be qualified to be automatically posted at premier sites like Yahoo, AltaVista and AOL, to name a few. 

Secret # 3
ALWAYS put the price for your product in your ad. Remember that you pay for every visitor who clicks on that link you have posted. So, what you don't want is every Tom, Dick and Harry clicking on it just for curiosity. You want real leads clicking through. You want people who really are looking for what you are offering; anyone else is simply lost money for you.

Okay, enough babbling! Here are the top three Pay Per Click Search Engines at This Time-

http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com  (Formally Overture. The Grand-daddy of them all)
Formerly GoTo.com http://www.bay9.com 
http://www.findwhat.com

I hope this helps you create some real and lasting traffic!

Good Luck!

 

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