Gaining Traffic Through PPC Marketing

At the surface, Pay-Per-Click advertising (PPC) appears fairly simple, consisting of buying a few keywords to display an ad on search engines such as Google or Yahoo and other services. The keywords are used to provide the appropriate advertising to search engines ‘natural’ search results.

Adwords appear on the right side and top of Google’s natural search results

Yahoo PPC ads appear on the right side and top of natural search results

If you’re not familiar with PPC Advertising….

If you place the highest bid for a specific keyword or phrase, you will rank #1 in paid listings. If someone clicks on your PPC ad/listing, you will be charged the amount you setup. So if you bid $.10 cents per click and you’re the highest bidder, you’ll show up first in line and if 100 people click on your listing, you will be charged $10.00. Competition for keywords can drastically be different depending on the niche market.

As example in Adwords:

As of 9/10/2007:

Blog Help = $.62 - $.87 CPC
Diets = $1.49 - $2.09 CPC
Make Money = $1.94 - $2.68 CPC
Mortgage = $10.95 - $16.33 CPC

PPC can cost a fortune for a new user as bidding wars can erupt quickly over a popular key phrase and can get expensive in a big hurry and sometimes cause your ROI (Return On Investment) to get out of control if visitors leave your site to never return.

PPC Can Be Risk Free

PPC can prove to be beneficial and work to your advancement especially if you find a low bid keyword niche. It can even be a no lose situation to utilize many of the PPC programs out there that are giving out free paid clicks for new account holders, ranging anywhere from $10-$50 in free credit. In this case, PPC can generate traffic to your site at no cost. Just remember to turn off/pause the PPC campaign when the free money runs too low for comfort.

There are a few programs I’ve personally tried and have netted some good results. It didn’t cost me any money, so ROI wasn’t an issue for me or my pocketbook.

Some of those I found giving out free clicks are:

  1. Bidvertiser is giving out $20 worth of Free Clicks
  2. Yahoo is giving out $25 worth of Free Credit (If you sign-up with Blue Host you can sign-up to Yahoo’s Search Program for $50 worth of Free Credit)
  3. Ad Marketplace is giving away $25 in Free Clicks
  4. Microsoft Ad’s Center is giving a small amount, but Free $5 to start
  5. Search123 gives you $25 in Free Clicks after initial deposit of $50.
  6. Miva is giving away $25 in Free Clicks after initial deposit of $50.

The overall rule of thumb at succeeding at PPC marketing?

Focus and Research. Pay-per-click advertising should be handled with short term goals in mind to start and should be handled with great care, with quantifiable goals. Using free clicks from services gives some beginners practice in distinguishing the value in conversions vs getting clicks and help you fine tune your campaigns to bring in the traffic you want. It also relieves any curiosity to the world of PPC marketing….

They say that curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back

11 Comments;

  1. shan
    7:45 am on September 18th, 2007

    good tutorial i have had some good experience with PPC with Goole and a bit with Yahoo. I tried out MSn but the traffic sucked and was hard to get. I love the bidding system because you can be at the top for certain keywords and not even pay that much but this can be the exact oppotite in some cases. (i dont use PPC on my blog just on my other website). good job :)

  2. david
    8:22 am on September 18th, 2007

    Can you set a limit of when when to stop your adword campaign once the budget you set has run dried?

  3. Susan
    8:29 am on September 18th, 2007

    David - Unfortunately you can’t. You’ll just need to set a maximum daily budget and estimate the time you think the money will run out. Place the campaign on pause a couple days before if you feel that your free money is getting too low for comfort.

  4. david
    8:29 pm on September 18th, 2007

    I see, thanks for the reply!

  5. GnomeyNewt
    4:02 pm on September 19th, 2007

    Thanks for the free clicks! :c) Wasn’t signed up for some of these places, I usually jump on them for the free money but they won’t let you do it over and over again. Hmm I wonder why? ;c) I stay away from google because I feel it is too saturated but I’ve had good results with lesser known places.

  6. Susan
    5:20 pm on September 19th, 2007

    I’m glad to have come across a few you haven’t seen Sarah :D Yep, I’m always up for a free trial as long as there are no strings attached for the future.

  7. Gregg Hawkins
    7:26 pm on September 22nd, 2007

    Now I know who to contact if I ever have any questions about adwords campaigns :p I’ve been wanting to try something like that for a while, but still need to do quite a bit of research before I jump in. There’s definitely a lot of possibilities and much money to be made :D

  8. Tony Cai
    10:24 pm on September 23rd, 2007

    It is against Adsense policies to display CPC info like that on your screenshots, not to be a douche but its better to be on the safe side. :)

    Awesome blog BTW.

    Tony Cai

  9. Susan
    10:49 am on September 24th, 2007

    Tony - Hrmm….I wasn’t aware of that as I’ve seen it a few times myself. I appreciate the heads up and have removed the screenshots. Would you mind pointing out where it is on the policy?

    Thanks a million Tony.

  10. Tony Cai
    11:16 am on September 24th, 2007

    I cannot find the TOS for Adsense right now but a search shows me this:

    “5. Do not disclose confidential information about your account like the CTR, CPM and income derived via individual ad units or any other confidential information they may reveal to you. However, you may reveal the total money you make as per recent updates to the TOS.”

    From this link:
    http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/2005/05/15-common-mistakes-by-google-adsense-publishers/

    I did not know about it as well, until someone told me about it:
    http://www.tonycai.com/2007/09/01/woot-google-adsense-owes-me-100/#comments

    Thanks for your comment about the MacBook, appreciate it! :)

    Tony Cai

  11. Susan
    11:38 am on September 24th, 2007

    Thanks Tony. The screenshots I supplied were public information but I’ll leave them off - just in case.

    No problem! You’ve got a great site. :)

    Susan

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