Friday, October 10, 2008

The Most Common PPC Advertising Mistakes

By Brian Basch

Pay per click allows you to target specific markets by their interests or where they live, making it a great advertising option. Results can be measured with statistics and spending controlled to suit. It's very much viable for small business owners who might be considering things like television, news print and radio.

Of course, like any other form of advertising, PPC has its pitfalls. Launching your first ad campaign without a good plan could result in hundreds or thousands of dollars in wasted ads while you learn what to do and what not do to. There are whole books on the details of a good pay per click campaign out there.

However, getting things off the ground doesn't require a book worth of information. There are a few basic PPC mistakes that most business owners make when they start out. They're easy to fix, and repairing these problems can increase your PPC campaign's effectiveness dramatically. Here are the most common errors people make, and how to fix them.

Mistake 1. Using your home page as a landing page isn't an effective way to convert clicks to sales. No matter what search engine you're using, the landing page is the key to making the sale. Deciding where customers are directed, instead of just showing everyone your home page when they click on an ad, is the fastest and best route for the customer. Start sending them to other links and places and they will get lost and return back to the search page, probably to click on one of your competitors ads.

When people click on your ad , they are looking for a very specific thing that you've been advertising. Landing pages can be specific to ads, so that the person is taken directly to what it is you are advertising. This way, the customer gets exactly what they are looking for. Landing pages should be focused on keywords or phrases used in the advertisement and don't clutter it up with other links or distractions.

2. Poorly customized landing pages. Make no mistakes about it, the landing page should relate directly to the ad and vice versa. The minute a potential customer gets confused or thinks they have gotten lost they will immediately exit back to the search. Your customer must be able to find what he or she is looking for, so advertised products or services should have their own landing page that addresses the keywords used in your ads.

Mistake 3. Using ineffective ad copy that just doesn't suit. You don't have a lot of space to work in PPC ads. Try to look for impact from your ad copy and avoid old clichs that you see on store windows like "qualified technicians" or "quality guaranteed". Even if these statements are true about your business, they just don't work in pay per click advertising. Put some thought into an attention-grabbing headline and follow it up with a strong promise you can give your customers. Line three is a good spot to include special features of the product or service, or an offer you want to make.

4. Low bids. Different search engines use different methods to determine where your ad goes. Yahoo and Google use the relevancy of your ad and the bid price to determine your positioning. It's a big mistake to not aim for one of those first few advertising positions, as much as 85 percent of people click on the first three on the list. So you need to put some careful thought into your ad to get the best results. - 15359

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