MARKET ASSOCIATE

PPC Driving traffic to your website is one of the most important activities that you can do as the owner of an online business. Without traffic, you are guaranteed not to get any sales. Therefore, no matter what your business model is, traffic is the first thing to be concerned about. In this article, we will focus on Google AdWords pay per click (PPC) advertising which is a way for you to get targeted traffic to your website. For the uninitiated, however, there are many pitfalls that await.

The first tip has to do with proper structuring of your ad campaign. When you create a new ad campaign, it is better to create a number of smaller ad groups within that campaign. One of the big mistakes that newcomers to AdWords make is creating a single ad group and filling it up with hundreds if not thousands of keywords. It is far better to come up with a few different categories that describe your business and focus on creating groups of tightly related keywords for each group.

Secondly, learn how to write an ad that will draw the readers’ attention and get them to click on it. With the limited number of characters allowed for the ad copy, one of the best ways to come up with attention grabbing copy is to learn from the classified ads in newspapers and magazines. Browse through the classifieds and take note of any ad that really captures your attention and ask yourself what makes it work. When you write ads that get more clicks, you will increase your click through ratio (CTR) and as a result you could lower the minimum bid that you pay for each click.

The third tip has to do with testing and tracking your ads. Be sure to create multiple ads and rotate them evenly to test which ones result in the best CTR. You will need to run the test so that each ad gets at least 50 or so clicks. Otherwise, the test will be invalid if you base your decision on just a few clicks. When you set up your campaign initially, be sure to select the option to rotate your ads evenly because the default option is to allow the system to automatically optimize showing your best ad more often. If this is the case, you will not be able to run an accurate split test.

There is a steep learning curve for becoming proficient at Google AdWords. If you do not give up, however, and master the system, you will be rewarded with targeted traffic to your website.