Pay Per Click Isn’t So Difficult - Part I of Two

Traditional vs. PPC

PPC, or Pay Per Click, is, as you know, a way of advertising your products and services.  However, unlike traditional advertising, where you have to pay regardless of whether somebody reads your ad or not, you only have to pay WHEN somebody click on your ad (hence the clever name for it!).

Scared?

Yes, an inordinately high percentage of people are scared of Pay Per Click.  The reasons?  I think it’s mostly because of scare tactics used by unscrupulous marketers out there, but there’s another reason, and that is….fear of the unknow.

Try It

If you’ve never tried a PPC campaign (which is a very grand title for a simple procedure), it’s certainly worth trying. After all, the only thing you’re doing is setting a limit on how much you are willing to pay, and then writing a few words of copy, after having specified the keywords that you think are the ones people will be searching when looking for what you have to offer.

Keyword Research

The key (pun intended) is of course, keyword RESEARCH.  Without this, you’re just relying on pure luck, and that really won’t hack it (never does and never will quite honestly).  Did I ever tell you my definition of luck?

“Luck is nothing more than a wish for the future or a comment on the past.”  Simple, but accurate.

Understand The Basics

In understanding how to use PPC without wasting your money, or “LOSING YOUR SHIRT” as I’ve read some internet marketers say (just to scare you into buying their latest pdf report), you need to remember WHY people are searching online.

Basically, most people are searching online to get FREE INFORMATION, usually to solve a problem that they are experiencing, are are expecting to experience soon.  The former are the ones you should really aim your PPC ad at, because they are READY TO BUY, right now!

So, you MUST create an ad that will be readily clicked by THAT targeted group of people.

Then What?

You must also be mentally prepared to WANT to give money to Google.  That is, you KNOW that when you are paying them, IT IS MAKING YOU MONEY.

With that in mind, while following Google’s advice about how to structure your ad……IGNORE IT!  Huh?  Yep, ignore the way Google shows how it should be done.  They give an example that is great at showing what not to do.  They use a “New York Budget Hotel’ headline, which is very appealing, but only if you want to spend a bit less money on a hotel in New York.

While this would SEEM to be the point, it really isn’t.  You see, a person seeing that ad, with another underneath it saying “Want Cheap NYC Hotels?” as the headline, you’re offering a CHOICE to the reader, so they’re much more likely to click that ad.

If you then follow-up in your two lines (only two are currently allowed, with up to 35 characters each) with something like:

“Free info on clean hotels”

“Get free info on all budget hotels”

…….then you can see why somebody would rather click the this ad than the first one.  You’re giving them choice AND something FREE.

Tomorrow, we’ll get into slightly more detail, but for now, just remember, web surfers mostly want one of two things:

1. A solution to a problem

2. Something FREE

Luke.