Beginning
with GoTo.com (now called overture.com) pay per
click searches have revolutionized search services
on the internet. Every company can get their site
and products in front of more people in less time
than normal search engines allow. And every net
entrepreneur can test offers in days instead of
weeks.
Let's take a look at the key components of ppc engines
for an average business.
1) A website - you need a website that provides
a service, product, or information that people want.
2) Keywords - you need to know what terms people
are using when they are interested in the types
of offer you provide.
3) PPC Account - you need to open an account with
a ppc search engine
PPC engines allow you to bid on a keyword or phrase
that you believe people would use if they are trying
to find the products or services you provide. If
you have a high conversion product used by many
people (with a good percentage of purchases by those
who come to your site) you would probably want to
use a broad set of search terms with the goal of
getting more traffic. If your product is highly
niched or expensive, you would generally only want
those who were specifically interested in your product
finding you so you would use highly defined search
words or phrases. Let's take a look at an example
of both.
For our first product lets choose an internet access
company like http://icanx.com
Icanx.com provides national internet access
which is a service used by hundreds of millions
of people. They will want to bid on a very broad
range of terms associated with dial up service.
Here is a basic starting list:
1) isp
2) dial up
3) dial up access
4) website hosting
5) internet access
This is by no means a complete basic list and you
will certainly want to brainstorm for core words
and phrases associated with your products. Luckily
for you there are two really great ways to do this.
1) Your server logs! If you aren't checking your
own server logs you are missing out on the best
source of information available. Your logs should
tell you where your current traffic is coming from
and what search terms they used to find you. That's
hot! So check your logs as your first source for
search terms.
2) After you have gleaned all the info you can for
free from your server logs it is time to step up
and find out what terms you are missing. Wordtracker
is THE place to get that job done. For a
small fee you can find all the common and all the
obscure terms that people use when searching for
products and services like yours. And the real gold..the
stuff that makes your sales soar are all the obscure
terms that nobody else is bidding on but people
are searching for!
Now, back to icanx.com..when they look up the
basic terms above here is an example of associated
terms that they can use.
Click
here to open the list in a new window
You can see this represnts a very broad set of search
terms but they all target the buyer of this type
of service. How do we know? Wordtracker said these
are the terms people are using right now to find
this type of service. Is this a complete list..not
even close. This represents about 1/3 of the terms
that DialUpNow.com should be using on ppc engines.
Remember, the beauty of the PPC's is that if nobody
clicks on your listing to go to your site you don't
pay a penny. The money you deposit to open your
account just sits there until somebody finds your
search terms and clicks to go to your site. So don't
be afraid of adding thousands of terms as long as
the person who is clicking will actually find a
product or service that correalates to the term
you bid on.
So now you have your website and you have your keywords
so you are ready to open up an account with a ppc
(or better yet spread your money out and maximize
your opportunities by using a few larger engines
and a few smaller or niche engines!)
Let's take a look at the second type of site...a
highly niched product
