Top 5 Steps To Big Profits With PPC Marketing

If you have a business, you have a lot to gain by implementing a PPC marketing plan. It’s the easiest, fastest, and most cost effective method for driving immediate targeted traffic straight to your website.

While setting up a PPC marketing plan sounds like it should be pretty simple and straightforward, there’s a whole lot more to it than just slapping some ad text up with a link to your website. This post looks at the top five steps to big profits with PPC marketing so you get clicks that turn into cash instead of clicks that totally drain your bank account.

1. It All Starts With A Goal

It may sound corny and cliché, but success with a PPC marketing plan begins with a goal. Do you want to sell just one of your products or services? Do you just want email list sign ups and leads? Do you want to test the pull factor of a particular ad or a new product or service? Don’t skip over taking the time to figure out what you want to gain before setting up a PPC marketing plan or you’ll get a bunch of clicks that really accomplish nothing for your business.

2. Keywords Can Make Or Break Your Campaign

Most PPC marketing plans go wrong here. If you choose the wrong keywords or keywords that are too general, you’ll spend tons of cash. Unless you’ve got a pricey product that will sell like hotcakes, even if you make some sales you’ll likely spend more money than you make. Never optimize for general keywords like “books,” “lose weight,” or “make money.” The best keywords narrowly focus in on exactly what you have to sell.

For example, don’t use “auto parts.” It’s too general. Searchers will click to see what kinds of auto parts you sell. If you’re selling 2010 Chevrolet Tahoe front air deflectors and they’re looking for a 2009 Mazda 3 gas cap, you just bought yourself a click that accomplished nothing. Better keyword choices would be “2010 Tahoe front air deflector,” “buy Tahoe front air deflector,” or “Chevy Tahoe air deflector.”

3. You Gotta Have A Strategy

Find out the bid amounts for your keywords and then develop a bidding strategy for your PPC marketing plan instead of just bidding the highest amount for #1 placement. For example, if #1 costs $2.00 a click, but the #3 position only costs $.25¢ a click, it might not be worth an extra $1.75 per click just to rise up to #1, especially if you write a stronger ad than #1 has.

4. Home Pages Don’t Convert, Landing Pages Do

Second to making really bad keyword choices, the next most common mistake in a PPC marketing plan is sending clickers to your home page. You never want to send people to your home page unless the exact product or service they’re searching for is on your home page.

It’s happened to me tons of times, so I’m sure it’s happened to you. You click on an ad for this really cool product you’re looking for and the click directs you to the website’s home page. Then you have to spend your valuable time searching the pages of the website to locate what you were looking for when you clicked on the ad. If you’re like me, you probably don’t even search. You probably just click the back button and head to their competitor’s website where you’re redirected to a focused landing page.

For example, don’t send someone clicking on your ad for a “Garmin GPS bike computer” to the home page of your 2,000 product online bike shop, forcing them to look through 2,000 products to find it. Direct ad clickers to the exact page featuring the Garmin GPS bike computer.

5. Test, Track, And Change

You can’t just set and forget your PPC marketing campaign. You have to test and track different ads to see what performs best. Change what doesn’t work, keep what does work, and constantly keep the process going because what worked great this month, might be a dud next month.

There’s a lot more involved in creating a winning PPC marketing plan, but implementing these five steps will help get you started on the right track. If it all sounds like a big hassle to you, let Seattle SEO Consultant handle your PPC campaign. Call us at 888-574-6067 for a FREE 15 minute consultation to talk about it today!