PPC From The Ground Up

The following is an original guest post written by Trace Ronning from WordWatch PPC. 

Paid search marketing is not easy. Successful PPC is a constantly moving target and what works today might not work tomorrow. If you’re a small business owner, how can you be expected to keep up with the latest developments in the pay-per-click world and – oh yeah – run your business? We can all use some help with our advertising efforts from time to time, even if we can’t afford to outsource the entire campaign to a company of experts.

Since Google is the largest search engine and the one that most small businesses use, I’m going to limit this post to discussing how to use AdWords more effectively as a small business.

What I find most often when it comes to small advertisers who use AdWords is that they don’t really know if AdWords is working for them. And if it isn’t, they aren’t sure why. The good news is that there are tools out there than can get even the most inexperienced advertisers up to speed.

A Sturdy Foundation

The starting point to a good AdWords campaign is proper structure. At the campaign level, be sure to target your ads by region, network and budget. Don’t let your advertisements be shown in Texas if you only sell or ship your products in Oregon. Going deeper, limit each ad group to one product or service: One ad group for lamps, one ad group for tables, etc. This allows you to have a single theme in your text ads and better ROI tracking per ad group.

Get Creative

Onto the text ad: This is what’s going to get people on your site. Successful ads consist of a hook, an explanation and a closer. The hook can be a claim or a question, “Need To Save Money?” or “Lose 30 lbs In 6 Weeks” are phrases that will spark interest in users searching those terms. The second line should be informative. For example, “New diet burns fat while you eat,” lets people know what your product does. Your closer should be a call to action, for instance, “Click Now For Free Trial” compels people to take advantage of the offer right away.

Think about what makes your product special and how to communicate that to your customer. Is it made of all-natural ingredients? Say so in the ad! ‘All-natural’ has a compelling appeal to particular consumers.  Create multiple ads highlighting other selling points to bring in a wider variety of customers.

If you feel yourself getting writer’s block, take a look at BoostCTR. Their consultants compete to write the most persuasive ad copy for you, and you only have to pay if their ads drive more clicks than the ones you’re currently running.

How To Be Seen

So you’ve divided your products into different ad groups and written engaging text ads for each. Now you need to build your keyword list using some tools. Google’s Keyword Tool suggests similar keywords for you to include in your ad group. The Traffic Estimator will help you determine how many searches occur per month for those keywords. Here’s a tip for you, you’re now required to include a maximum CPC when creating the estimate. Try putting down $50 as your default amount for the best results.

It’s important to continue adding keywords in order to increase your number of clicks but finding new keywords to include in your ad group can be difficult. When you get to the point where you can’t think of any keywords on your own, try Wordstream: A company with a trillion-keyword research suite at your disposal.

Lastly, an oft-overlooked element of a good keyword list is the inclusion of negative keywords. These are the keyword combinations that you specifically don’t want associated with your ad. For example, say you’re selling inkjet cartridges, so ‘cartridge’ is a strong keyword for you. The problem is people are finding your store when they search for ‘shotgun cartridge.’ In this instance, you’d want to make ‘shotgun cartridge’ a negative keyword so that gun enthusiasts don’t click on your ad, costing you money.

The Dreaded Bidding Process

We’ve arrived at the most time-intensive step of the entire AdWords procedure, keyword bidding. Because the search market constantly fluctuates, monitoring and adjusting your bids is a never-ending process, and many small business advertisers are guilty of the number one bidding “no-no”, setting and forgetting. This means that one day your ad may show in the top spot but on the next day you might not be bidding enough to be seen.

To manually track your bids, you can use complicated spreadsheets to monitor and analyze the CPC of any particular day with the resulting position, number of clicks and conversions. You then track it throughout the week, adjusting the bids according to the previous day’s results. If you only have ten keywords, this is a pain in the neck but it’s possible. Once you hit hundreds – or thousands – of keywords, manual bid tracking and adjusting becomes impossible.

A great tool for managing bidding automatically is WordWatch. They work only with small advertisers who might not have a large budget but understand the importance of getting the right price for every bid, every day.

More Tools

Even though PPC isn’t easy, it’s nice to know there’s a wealth of tools available to help small advertisers get the results they deserve. For more ideas, check out Bryan Eisenberg’s list of PPC tools that anyone can use to improve their campaigns. What PPC tools are you using for your campaigns? What seems to work the best? Your input and feedback are appreciated!