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A new Web Marketing ROI Calculator - Part 1
In the beginning, search engine marketers were only concerned about top 10 rankings. Do you remember those days? Then, as things progressed and we began to work "smarter," we began to take note of how those top 10's were actually converting to...
eCommerce Web Site Building: Where Do I Start?
Building a web site isn't something that is really cut and dry. There's a huge variety of products and services that can either help you get your web site where you want it or simply confuse you. It's also important that you make the right choices...
How To Become A Powerful Affiliate Marketer In 10 Minutes
Tip 1 - What Are Affiliate Programs? Welcome to the wide world of affiliate marketing! Affiliate marketing (sometimes called referral marketing) is based business people. So, what is an affiliate and what does he or she do? The affiliate marketer...
Search Engines 101 - Search Engines Explained
What Are Search Engines?
A search engine is a database system designed to index and categorize internet addresses, otherwise known as URLs (for example, http://www.submittoday.com ).
There are four basic types of search engines:
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Using Smaller Search Engines for Big Profits
Google, Yahoo and MSN. Most webmasters and online marketers
spend a lot of their time trying to get listed in the big
three search engines. But trying to figure out the algorithms
and robot visits for these SE's can mean changing your site
for...
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Pay-Per-Click Advertising – The Basics
Search engine optimization can take a long time to show results. The Google sandbox alone can delay optimization results by 6 to 8 months. So, what can you do to get traffic while you wait? Pay-per-click [“PPC”] campaigns fill the time gap. This article discusses the basics of PPC advertising.
What Is A PPC?
A PPC search engine allows you to bid for placement in search results. Search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, AOL and most others bolster their organic search results with sponsor advertisements. If you search on Google, links in blue across the top and the little ads down the right side of the search results are PPC listings. In one form or another, similar listings appear on every major search engine.
How Does It Work?
When you use a PPC, you will bid for placement in the search results under particular keywords. Instead of optimizing your site to appear high in the listings, you simple pay for the position. While this may sound great, keep in mind you are paying for the listing and have to watch the return on investment closely.
To get started, you must open an account with the PPC in question. The two biggest PPCs are Google Adwords and Overture. You will need to register with the PPC, provide a credit card number and, depending on the PPC, deposit money into the account. Next, create ads with a title, body text and link to the landing page of your site. The title of each ad should correspond to a particular keyword you want to promote. If at all possible, include the keyword in the actual title. Finally, you will be asked to bid on placement in the search results.
Bidding for placement is not as simple as it my sound. Ideally, your ad should be in the top 3, but never below the 10th position. This has to be balanced, however, by the return on investment of the campaign. If you sell a product that produces a $10 dollar profit per sale, you probably can’t afford to pay $.90
per click. If your site converts 1 visitor out of every 100 into a sale, you will spend $90 for every sale. Obviously, that is going to work out very well. The one caveat to this situation is a business with reoccurring revenue.
If you site charges clients a reoccurring monthly fee, you can bid in excess of your immediate profit margin. To do this safely, you must determine how long the average customer will stay on your site. For example, if you make a $10 profit per month and the average customer pays for 5 months, the total profit is $50. In this situation, you can spend $20 or $30 to obtain a customer and still turn a profit. To properly manage a PPC campaign for a reoccurring charge site, you must recalculate the profit per customer ever week to protect yourself.
PPC Cons
Why not just use a PPC campaign instead of pursuing search engine optimization? There are a number of reasons. First, you are paying for each click with a PPC, which requires a budget and may impact your cash flow. Second, PPC bidding is competitive and that translates into higher costs, so much so that a profit may be hard to make. Third, many people simply do not click on PPC ads with the figure being as high as 20 percent. Fourth, you run the risk of having people click on your ads with no intention of buying, whether they are just browsing or are trying to exhaust your advertising budget.
PPCs definitely have a place in the online marketing field. Manage your campaigns with an eye for detail and you should fine.
About the Author
Halstatt Pires is with Marketing Titan- an Internet marketing and advertising company in San Diego, California comprised of a search engine optimization specialist providing meta tag optimization services and Internet marketing consultant providing internet marketing solutions through integrated design and programming services.
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