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- Pay-Per-Click / Paid Marketing

How to Market your Web site using
Pay-Per-Click Advertising and Paid Inclusion Marketing

[  ... about social bookmarking ]

Paying for traffic to your Web site makes sense -- and cents. But if you don't take care in your pay-per-click and paid marketing initiatives you can waste a lot of money.

Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing (Overture) and MSN AdCenter are the three most popular pay-per-click programs. Pay-per-click has some real advantages over regular search and can be a nice compliment to a search engine campaigns plus a good keyword testing tool.

The research I've read tells me that 'organic' / NON-sponsored listings once got more traffic and often produced better 'close' (or sell) rates on-line. It has often been noted that search engine users 'trust' non-sponsored rankings more than paid initiatives. But pay-per-click / sponsored programs are now seeing increasing return-on-investment spending when used properly.

Incidentally, we're using Click Tracks Web site traffic tracking software to monitor and analyze what works best: organic, paid marketing, or a combination of both... methinks this will be the focus of a future Brand News Article.

Why Use Pay-Per-Click Programs? Drive Immediate Traffic Pay-per-click programs can drive traffic to your Web site immediately. Don't have much traffic? Select your keywords wisely, make your bid and you'll have visitors to your Web site PRESTO! Non-sponsored listings can take from several months to over a year to produce results. Help Your FREE Organic / Non-Sponsored Listings Although Google and the other major search engines deny the pay-per-click initiatives affect free 'organic' search results, my experience tells me paid on-line marketing initiatives probably help improve Google and Yahoo rankings. How? Links are important. When you advertise on a 'trusted' source like Google or Yahoo you get the benefit of having a link on a 'trusted' Web site. Gives You a Presence Where You Can't Get a Strong Organic Listing. It's tough to get listed in the top 5 when keyword phrases are competitive. Just try getting in the top 10 for "New York Real Estate". It takes a well built Web site, with lots of good links, proper optimization and more to achieve strong rankings when you are competing in a competitive keyword/phrase category. Pay-per-click and sponsored links can assist in establishing a strong presence if you are willing to fork over the cash.

I won't get into the intricacies of pay-per-click campaigning - and believe me, there are many strategies and tactics that you can use. However, there are some common best practices that you should follow for best results.

Some Paid Marketing Tactic 'Best Practices' Research Keywords & key phrases Do your homework in selecting the right keywords or keyphases to bid for and to include in your ad copy. In week 3 of this series we reviewed how to properly select keywords. Use such tools as: Word Tracker Key Word Discovery Overture's Search Terms Suggestion Tool Google’s Keyword Suggestion Tool Remember, you don't need to bid on just the most popular keyword phrases. Sometimes less popular word and phrases can get great results. Often longer keyword phrases end up with the best 'close' results i.e. more sales! Set a Monthly Budget You can easily blow a lot of cash on pay-per-click. If you are getting a return on your investment then go for it. We all know the saying... "You gotta spend money to make money". However, you can set a limit on your monthly spending. Stick to it to avoid the shock of an expensive surprize at the end of the month. Track Your Results My experience tells me that most small and medium sized businesses do a very poor job at tracking the results of any marketing or advertising! On-line paid marketing initiatives are great because you can easily quantify the results of your purchases. Both Yahoo Search Marketing (Overture) and Google provide good tools to get the job done. Web Analytics products available like ClickTracks and WebTrends are great tools to track your paid marketing performance! Learn more about these tracking programs or talk to a good Web marketing firm... like Custom Fit Communications... just make sure you take advantage of the great Web tracking tools! Read and react. When something is working that's great. When it isn't, make some changes and monitor the results. You may even find it fun... in a twisted sort of manner!

Keep these strategies and tactics in mind when building your Pay-Per-Click and paid marketing on-line campaigns.

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