Paid Search: One-Way Ticket To The Poor Farm Or
Great Profits?
Author: Terry Stanfield

Pay-per-click is a fantastic way to drive web traffic to your
site from the major search engines. It can also suck your
marketing budget dry in just a couple of days if not done
properly. The bottom line is someone is going to profit by
implementing paid search. The question is, is it going to be you
or the search engines? The goal of the search engines (and their
strategies) is more clicks. The more people click on your ads
the more money the search engines make. Their strategy is to get
as many clicks as possible with in your budget and they are
willing to do that all day long. This is great for them bad for
you.

The real goal should be more conversion with less clicks and
lower cost. Let's take a few minutes to look at some strategies
that should make a difference in your campaigns.  We will get
more specific and articles to come.
General strategies

1. Turn off Content Network

In Google when you first set up a campaign there is a default
setting that turns the "content match" setting to "on". For now,
turn that setting off.  What this does is present your ads on
websites that are using AdSense. If you go to a website and see
"Ads by Google", those ads are coming from Google paid search
accounts.  Those ads show up on these websites based on the
content of the website.  At first glance this may look like a
good idea and it usually is, for Google.  There are two things
that you need to consider before turning on the content match.
The first is that the website that is hosting your ad gets paid
every time someone clicks on your ad.  Most of the click fraud
that happens is when an owner of a site or so want affiliated
with the site clicks on these ads.  The second thing is that
individuals who click on these ads are not actively seeking what
you are offering.  These folks are tire kickers.  Even though
your ad may be presented (number of impressions) to a lot of
people, the click through rate and conversion rate is very low.
The magic of search engine marketing is that you come in contact
with individuals who are actively searching for what you have to
offer. Only pay for clicks that come from people in that
category.

2. Search Terms.

The more general the term the less qualified to lead (generally
speaking). Personally, I am not a big fan of hundreds of key
words for paid search. This is a great strategy the search
engines and paid search management companies that are paid a
percentage of your spend.  What I try to figure out what terms
would work in order to get my ideal customer to my site.
Remember, you want people to come to your site who are actively
searching for what you are offering.  For example if you sell
"long term care insurance" what type of people do you want
clicking on your ads? Of course, you want individuals looking
for long term care insurance, not "long term care" or
"insurance". You can use these terms if you create a list of
"negative" key words. We will talk about that at another time.

3. Keyword "types"

There are three types of keywords "Broad", "Phrase" and
"Exact". Do not use "broad match" except for phrases with four
or more words.  For example, long term care insurance quote. The
rule of some that I use is for single word phrases, I use exact
match and four search phrases that are two to three words, I
used "phrase matching".  I am also experimenting with using
"exact" matching for these terms as well.  Remember the more
specific the search term is to what you are offering and who
your ideal client is the more qualified to lead will be.  Better
a small number of qualified leads than a large number of leads
that waste your time and ultimately cost a lot more money.

4. Ad Copy Just a couple thoughts on writing ads.  When you
write your ads put the following in your "headline" box:
{keyword: "your main keyword}. This will put your keyword phrase
into the headline.  This is very important for a lot of reasons
that we will get into at another time.  Your ad should be
specific enough to attract only your ideal client (someone who
is looking for exactly what you have to offer). Your ad
contained at least one of your "unique selling propositions".
This can be very challenging because of the space limitations.
Rule of thumb, find out what your competitors are doing and do
something different. For example, if everyone is offering free
shipping, use one of your other unique selling propositions.

5. Landing Pages

You need to put a lot of thought to your landing pages. Your
landing page has to do one thing that is answer the questions
are up that the searcher had in mind when he typed in his key
words. The searcher type in his search terms because he has a
problem, needs a solution and is in some kind of "pain". You
have about two seconds to convince him that you understand what
he is going through and what he needs.  It does not matter if
you are selling hammers, insurance or investment products.  The
last thing a searcher wants to see is that you can jump higher,
run faster and do it better than the competition.  He just
doesn't care.  Besides, 99% of the websites that he visited
probably stated that they do that. You must show him that you
have the answers to his needs.  Do not just send him to your
home page unless your home page can accomplish the above. Once
you connect with your searcher you must have a call to action.
It can be a "buy now", "for more information contact us",
"contact us for a free evaluation" or "consultation".  You must
be very specific and clear about your next steps. Have your
phone number or contact us button on every page.

6. Tracking

Finally, track everything.  Paid search is not an exact
science. It takes time to set up and optimized your campaigns to
get the results that you are looking for. You must monitor your
campaigns at the least weekly in order to catch market changes.
Unless you have a time of venture capital money laying around,
paid search is not something you turn on and forget about.
Google, Yahoo and MSN have free tracking tools that work great.

Pay-per-click is a great marketing tool, if used correctly.  It
can also, as stated earlier, suck your marketing budget dry in a
heartbeat. It is a lot cheaper to find someone who knows what
they are doing and does this day in and day out to help you than
it is to lose thousands of dollars trying to figure it out
yourself.


About The Author: Terry Stanfield is a SEM consultant with over
15 years of sales and marketing experience. His company,
Clickadvantage at http://www.clickadvant.com, manages PPC and
SEO efforts for his lead generation and ecommerce clients.