Using Google Pay Per Click
and More to Grow Traffic
What Is PPC?
Pay Per Click refers to an advertising mechanism in which advertisers pay each time someone
clicks their ad. More specifically, though, these days it refers to ads displayed on search-engine
results pages.
Each time someone clicks one of these links, the company that placed the ad is charged. How
much? Somewhere from 5 cents (on Google) or 10 cents (on Yahoo!) to many dollars! Some
PPC ads cost as much as $50 per click, occasionally even more!
Because large PPC systems generally “feed” a variety of sites, when you buy ads through
a system such as Google or Yahoo! Search Marketing Solutions, your ads may end up on many
different search sites. But you may also have your ads distributed elsewhere, like on the pages of
thousands of different web sites, thanks to the Google AdSense distribution program.
1.It’s very quick. You can start getting results from the search engines in a day or two (in
theory, a few hours, but in most cases it takes a little longer to get everything sorted out).
2. It’s reliable. Using PPC to get traffic to your site is very reliable. You can generate a lot
of traffic, and always appear for appropriate searches in the major search engines . . . if
you’re willing to pay enough.
3. It’s easy to measure. You can see just how much traffic you’re getting, and even figure
out how much of the traffic turns into business.
The PPC Systems
The basic process of using Pay Per Click is pretty simple.
1. Decide to which pages you want to direct traffic from your ads. You can bring traffic to
any page you wish, not just the home page.
2. Register with a PPC system—you’ll provide a credit card to be used to pay for the ads—
and “load” the account with some money to begin with.
3. Write one or more PPC ads (carefully follow the system’s ad guidelines, or the ad won’t
be placed).
4. Associate keywords with your ad—that is, decide which keywords will “trigger” your
ads to appear.
5. Place a bid on each keyword for each ad—in other words, tell the PPC system how much
you are willing to pay every time someone clicks your ad.
6. Turn on the ad campaign and wait for the traffic to appear.
Understanding Conversion Ratio, Click Value, and ROI
There’s one huge disadvantage to PPC ads, though . . . they cost money. Sometimes a lot of
money. Often, in fact, so much money that you will lose money if you buy PPC ads! In order to
use PPC, you really must understand Conversion Ratio, Breakeven Click Value, and Return on
Investment (ROI):
1 Conversion Ratio The proportion of visitors to your site who buy from you. This is the
foundation of any click-value or ROI calculation.
2 Breakeven Click Value The “breakeven” value of a click is the maximum sum you
can pay for a click and not lose money. Of course, you want to pay as little as possible,
but there’s a point at which a click doesn’t make you money and doesn’t lose you money.
If you go over the price, however, you start losing.
3 Return on Investment The amount of money you make after investing in advertising,
typically expressed in terms of the sum returned for every dollar invested. If you pay
$1,000 for ads, and make a profit of $10,000, your ROI is $10 per $1 invested.
You need to consider these things three times:
4 When you have no background information When you first begin considering PPC
ads, you may not know what your conversion ratio is. That is, you don’t know how
many people coming to your site will buy from you. You can, however, do a simple
“guesstimate” to figure out whether PPC will work for you. At this point, you can decide
if PPC is worth doing.
5 When you know your conversion ratio Once you understand what your conversion
ratio really is, you can calculate more accurately whether PPC will work for you. At this
point, you’ll have a much better idea of the likelihood of success.
6 When you’re running a PPC campaign Once you’re buying PPC ads, and people
are coming to your site, you can calculate ROI exactly. It’s then that you’ll know exactly
whether (under current conditions) PPC works for you.
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Google Schmoogle
Climbing To The Top Of The List