By Derek Gehl

I love pay-per-click marketing! There are few forms of online advertising that offer such complete control over where you spend your advertising dollars.

But despite the ability to control Google Adwords and Yahoo! Search Marketing gives you over your ads -- how much you spend on them, where and when they appear, etc. -- I'm constantly meeting savvy Internet marketers who are wasting tons of unnecessary money on their pay-per-click campaigns because they are either...

a) Making "okay" money from their campaigns and too lazy to do the work to make them really successful

-- or --

b) They just don't know any better!

No matter how you're doing with YOUR pay-per-click efforts, here are 4 tips that you can start applying today to fine-tune your campaigns and boost your ROI.

Tip #1: Keywords... keywords... keywords!

Even if your business targets an extremely narrow niche market, your campaign should begin with at least 100 keywords.

I have yet to come across a niche market for which we couldn't find that many keywords for the initial round of testing. In fact, the majority of businesses I deal with start in the range of 500-1000 keywords!

If it sounds like a huge challenge to come up with that many keywords, don't worry.

With tools like Wordtracker and Google's Keyword Evaluator, you don't have to come up with the keywords on your own. All you have to do is identify a core list of keywords and then let technology do the work for you.

Now, is every single one of those keywords going to make you money? Nope! Some will bomb horribly.

But I'll talk about how you deal with that in a second...

Tip #2: Never stop testing new ads

When you first start your pay-per-click campaigns, you should be writing at least five different ads for each keyword group.

Note: a "keyword group" is a cluster of closely related keywords that say exactly the same thing, in slightly different ways.

For example, a keyword group for a site promoting a bed and breakfast in El Paso, Texas could include:

El Paso bed and breakfast El Paso bed and breakfasts Bed and breakfast El Paso Bed and breakfasts El Paso Texas

El Paso BandB BandBs El Paso B and Bs El Paso B and B El Paso Texas B and Bs El Paso Texas

El Paso bed and breakfasts B and B El Paso El Paso Texas bed and breakfast Bed and breakfast El Paso Texas

... and so on.

(As you can see, the variations between each keyword phrase are very slight.)

Once you've written your five plus ads for your keyword group, run them all at the same time. Keep them going until you get enough impressions to determine which one is the winner -- and then roll out the winning ad across the entire group.

Congratulations... you now have a winning ad!

But don't stop now... continue to work on your ads and try to come up with one that will beat your current front runner. If you beat your winning ad, roll-out the new ad across your keyword group and then try and beat that ad.

Then keep on repeating this testing cycle indefinitely, to ensure you're always running the best possible ad you can.

Tip #3: Design targeted landing pages for each keyword group

Nothing will turn a visitor into a customer faster than a message that tells them exactly what they want to hear. So, if I have multiple keyword groups that target different themes, each ad should be driving visitors to a landing page with salescopy that reflects the theme of a single keyword group.

For example, if different themes an El Paso bed and breakfast owner could try targeting might be:

"family friendly bed and breakfast el Paso" or "el Paso couples bed and breakfast"

The first ad could lead to a landing page that emphasized all of the great family activities available in and around the bed and breakfast, while the second one could talk about how great the same bed and breakfast is as a romantic getaway.

By testing out different themes like this, you can see which theme gets the most sales and focus more of your PPC dollars there!

Tips #4: Detailed tracking

If you want to get the most bang for every PPC buck you spend, then simply tracking the overall effectiveness of your campaigns won't do. You need to track the effectiveness of every individual keyword if you want to crank every cent out of your PPC efforts!

Like I said in Step #1, you will be starting your campaign with hundreds of keywords. But not all of those keywords will be profitable. It's your job to weed out the unprofitable ones right away.

There are four different keyword performance scenarios you will encounter:

1. Keywords that aren't driving any traffic
   
   After you've tested a few different ads to confirm these keywords are ineffective, get rid of them. They're useless. Even though they're not costing you any money, they are cluttering up your campaign.
   
   
2. Keywords that are driving traffic -- but no sales
   
   This is where a lot of your wasted PPC dollars go! If you find this happening to you, look at your ad and make sure your landing page relates back to the keyword.
   
   Does the landing page meet the expectation your ad creates? If yes, then get rid of the keyword. It's only costing you money.
   
   
3. Keywords that are driving traffic and opt-ins -- but no immediate sales
   
   If you are a savvy marketer, chances are you have a good autoresponder sequence that builds a relationship with your subscribers and eventually converts them to sales.
   
   If this is the case, I would keep these keywords. The ROI is not immediate, but don't worry -- it will come!
   
   In fact, if you are trying to sell a higher-ticket product through PPC without much success, your entire marketing campaign may be more effective if it's based around driving leads to an opt-in form or squeeze page and then working up to the sale as you establish a relationship with your susbscribers.
   
   
4. Keywords that are driving traffic and sales
   
   Obviously these are the keywords we want to keep... but status quo is not enough!
   
   You need to track the conversion of each individual keyword. Some will convert higher than others, which will ultimately dictate how much you can bid on those keyword and still remain profitable.
   
   In other words, if I have a top performing keyword and I am not ranking in the top 3-4 positions, I may want to spend more to increase the position, my clickthrough ratio, and sales.

So there it is! Four strategies you can apply today. If you are already doing all of these, great!

However, if you are missing just one, there is a very good chance you are missing out on sales. And you could end up throwing good money after bad!

If you are just getting started with pay-per-click advertising, you can get far more detailed training in my exclusive Search Marketing Lab, which I will let you try for the next 30 days for only $2.95!

Happy "pay-per-clicking!"

Derek Gehl

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Derek Gehl specializes in teaching real people how to start profitable Internet businesses that make $100,000 to $2.5 Million (or more) per year. To get instant access to all his most profitable marketing campaigns, strategies, tools, and resources that he's used to grow $25 into over $60 Million in online sales, visit: http://www.marketingtips.com/tipsltr.html

Labels: advertise, internet, internet marketing, keywords, marketing

1. You can get ad copy ideas by studying similar
product's advertising material. Collect their sales
letters, classified ads, web ads, e-mail ads, etc.


2. Know exactly what you want your ad copy to
accomplish. It could be to qualify prospects, make
sales, generate leads, attract web traffic, etc.


3. Make a complete list of your product's benefits
and features. Begin your ad with the most important
benefit either in your headline or first sentence.


4. Make your ad benefits as specific as possible.
Include exact numbers, percentages, times, colors,
smells, sounds, descriptive adjectives, etc.


5. List all the ways your product is different from
your competition's. Include all the differences in
your ad copy that are better than their product.


6. Use graphics, pictures and drawings of people
actually using your product to solve their problem.
Include a picture that also shows the results.


7. Make a list of your target audience. Write down
what reasons would attract them to purchase your
product. Include those reasons in your ad copy.


8. Include any proven facts in your ad copy. They
could be customer surveys, scientific tests, product
reviews, etc.


9. Tell your audience what kind of support they'll
get after they buy. It could be free consulting, tech
support, free servicing, etc.


10. Ask people at the end of your copy why they
decided not to buy. This will give you new ideas on
how to produce a more profitable ad copy.

Quote of the Day:

"A desire of knowledge is the natural feeling of mankind;
and every human being whose mind is not debauched will be
willing to give all that he has to get knowledge." --
Samuel Johnson

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Labels: ad, advertise, internet, internet marketing, marketing, online, profit, writing

This is a new day, and today I finally opened a new group on Google groups.
you are invited to come and visit the group. it called "Learn2Earn2" ,
and it is dedicaed to online home business ideas and opportunities.
you can join the discussion, post your own ads and even upload files to share with every one.

This is a great advertising opportunity, just come and join us and feel free to advertise your business.

Visit the group here:
http://groups.google.com/group/learn2earn2/?hl=en

Your FREE copy of "DOTCOMOLOGY" is waiting for you

Labels: advertise, business, free, home, ideas, opportunities