Pay-Per-Click Search Engines

No time to wait for search engine optimization to take effect? Just want more traffic? Don't pay for bulk traffic, use a reputable pay-per-click search engine.

There are some tricks to doing well with PPC, and some things to watch out for, but the basics are easily enough mastered. The details may take a little longer, but pay-per-click can be very, very well worth your while.

Pay-per-click is rapidly becoming a vital source of advertising for all kinds of online businesses. If you know how to get your clicks for cheap you can save a lot of money and still make sales.
This is not going to teach you all the tricks. If you want to master pay-per-click, I suggest reading one or more of the following: (ebooks here). Each has a somewhat different take on how you can master pay-per-click, so read in my reviews to figure out which ones best complement one another.

The most basic technique is to do a lot of keyword research for as many search terms as possible, then see how cheaply you can get your clicks. Wordtracker is excellent for this. I do my basic research first using their free version, but switch to the paid version when I am ready and have hours to do nothing but generate lists. This allows me to pay for only a single day rather than for a longer subscription. If you use Wordtracker very often, however, you will eventually want to consider a monthly or annual subscription.

Make sure your keyword lists are separated by the page you will be sending visitors to. You should never send a pay-per-click visitor to your home page when they have searched for a specific item.

How specific should you get? As specific as you like. If you are selling electronics you can research terms that will bring visitors to the exact item they are searching for, as an example.
The biggest question is how much to pay. You need to keep careful track of your earnings to decide on this one. I often start a campaign with a low rate, often only 5-10 cents per click, then increase it as conversions warrant. You can certainly start higher; it depends on how competitive your phrases are and what it takes to get your ad seen. Being on the eighth page of results in a pay-per-click search engine isn’t any better than being there in the natural results.

But what if you aren’t getting conversions? There are two places to look. One is your ad. Is the copy well written? Is it clearly aimed towards people looking to buy? If you are getting a good number of clicks on your ad but not making sales, take a look at the copy on your sales page. Perhaps it is not effective. It make take a small change or a large one, but you must be willing to make the changes to get sales. You can read more on this topic in my article, “Why isn’t my site converting?”

Once you have a good number of clicks and sales it is time to determine if you are making a good profit, and whether you need to increase or decrease your cost per click, or maybe make other changes.

Look at how many clicks it is taking you to get one sale on average. You need multiple sales to determine this; do not be overanxious and start calculating after a single sale. Also do not be excessively patient. If you have hundreds of clicks and no sales, something needs to be fixed.

If your site is converting your clicks well, but you aren’t getting the number of visitors you would like, it is probably time to increase your bid. Calculate what you are earning from each sale and what each sale is costing you. If you make a sale every 20 clicks, earning you $40, even paying $1 per click would leave you with a $20 profit per sale, which is certainly not bad. On the other hand, earning $10 for every 20 clicks would limit you to a bid somewhere below 50 cents a click, depending on what profit margin you would like to see.

Do not leave your profit margins too thin. You need some time to react should your conversion rates drop. Pay-per-click is not something you can start up and then simply ignore. Keep up with what works for your sales, be aware if your position drops too low and keep reading to improve your techniques, as time and profits allow.

There are many pay-per-click search engines to try, with a variety of ad requirements and minimum bids. Check for special offers with each to see if you can save on your signup.
If this all sounds confusing, try buying a tool to help you. AdWord Analyzer is very effective at helping you to determine if a campaign is likely to be worth your time. You'll quickly know how competitive an area is in both Google AdWords and Yahoo Search , and generates a list of related keywords. This can save tremendous time and money.