One of the quickest ways to kick start your business and bring in qualified leads and sales is through a process called pay per click or PPC. However, this can also be one of the most confusing and daunting challenges. Let’s see if I can’t give you some clarity on this wildly popular advertising tool.

What is pay per click?

Simply put, PPC consists of getting potential customers to notice your ad with search keywords. When people search on Google, Bing or Yahoo using one of your keywords, your ad may appear next to the search results. This gives you the power of advertising to a specific audience that’s already interested in your business offering. Nice, right? To achieve these lofty goals, like everything worthwhile, you need to do some research first. I know… I know.

Who offers pay per click?

The three major companies offering pay per click advertising include: Google AdWords, Microsoft Ad Center and Yahoo Search Marketing. There are many others to be sure, like Linkedin and Facebook for example, but for simplicity sake I will use Google’s products.

To be successful you must have the highest amount of click throughs to your web site while staying in the budgeted amount for your campaign.

Keyword research can be as easy as 1-2-3.

. The goal here is to find those keywords that have just enough searches for them to be worth your time yet the price that you are paying for the click through remains reasonable. Below are some tips and links to help you do effective PPC keyword research.

1. Let’s say you own a restaurant in Boise and you want to find some keywords to target… I recommend starting with Google AdWords Keyword Tool. Copy all your keywords into a text file and get ready for the next step.

Just to make things easier to understand let’s say this tool returned 3 main results:

boise restaurants
restaurants in boise
best boise restaurants

2. Now we need to estimate the traffic that those 3 keywords can send you. To do that you’ll take your keyword, for example boise restaurants, and go here: Traffic Estimator. Here’s a great tip. Type your keyword inside the box between brackets [ ]. Don’t use quotes. If you use quotes Google will return broad results. In other words, it will count every possible keyword combination that contains “boise restaurants” which you don’t want. Use [boise restaurants] for the best results.

You will now see how many AdWord clicks you can get for this keyword. Take that number and multiply it by 20 to have a realistic idea on the amount of traffic that you will get from a natural search. Why multiply by 20? Google estimates that 5% of its users will click on the AdWord ads. You can do this again for all your main targeted keywords and you will get a great snapshot on the global traffic that you should receive.

3. Getting an estimate of traffic is tremendous but we also need to know how these words will trend and are trending. Are they dying, growing, stable? To do this there is another useful tool called Google Trends. To check the trending of your keywords (i.e. dying, growing, stable or seasonal) you will need to take your same keywords and place them inside quotes. For example “boise restaurants”. This is an ongoing process but extremely good to know information.

By using a keyword research tool and testing your keywords out you can effectively use those keywords that have the highest click through at the lowest cost, helping you to make more money.

Easy right? I know it’s a little complicated but after you do one or two it gets easier to understand. By doing the research upfront I promise it will be worth it to your bottom line. With that said… As you begin to research and design your ad there are some common “newbie” mistakes that can be made. Let’s look at these.

PPC Mistakes You Can Make

Blanket Coverage – National Advertising
You can target by state, city, zip code, etc. People buy from local companies. Targeting specific cities in your ads will result in higher click through rates (CTR).

Always Bidding for the Number One Spot
Lower spots can have higher CTRs (click through rate). Many profitable PPC campaigns do not bid for the infamous 1st spot. Try bidding for the 4th or 5th spot, and work your way up.

Mistaking CTR with Conversion Rates
Looking exclusively at the CTR (click through rate) is not necessarily an indicator of your best performing ad. You could see higher CTR, but not necessarily higher conversion rates. Successful conversion rates will lead to successful return on investment for your campaign.

Not having a “Call to Action” Content on your Web Site – Landing Page
When the customer, through their search, clicks your positioned page in their search results, congratulations! But the sale hasn’t been made yet. What good are massive clicks to your web site if there’s not great content and a compelling “call to action”?

Not using Brand Names as Keywords
If you have a great new product offering, don’t bid on generic terms like “music player”. Bid on “iPod” for example. Capitalize on popular names!

Budget Warning
Make sure you have thought through your average sale profit and what PPC is costing against that. So many times new users get caught up in impression counts, conversion rates, and so on without doing the math.

Bonus Advice!

Research your Competition
Believe it or not you can figure out what your competition’s keywords are. This can be crucial information in structuring your AdWords campaign for obvious reasons. Check out PPC Web Spy which lets you see competitor keywords while you do basic Google browsing. Powerful information.

Pay Per Click is a great way to build traffic to your website offering. Just watch the budget and do the research up front and you will quickly receive leads and sales.

Copyright © 2010 Chris Lott and Lottspace. All rights reserved.