How to Survive in the PPC Jungle

Pay per click advertising, usually referred to as PPC, is a very popular form of internet marketing because it can be an incredible way to drive targeted traffic to your website and make money from it. At first glance it seems great because the only time you have to pay for your advertising is if somebody actually clicks on the ad.

Pay per click advertising looks so easy on the surface but there are numerous pitfalls to using PPC in your internet marketing business. In this post I will point out a few of those pitfalls and tell you how to get around them. Hopefully, after reading this, you’ll end up giving yourself the best chance of actually having success with your PPC campaign.

Probably the biggest pitfall to pay per click advertising is keyword selection. Too many beginning internet marketers don’t know how to properly choose keywords and end up bidding on keywords that drain their bank account very quickly. For example, let’s say somebody was selling a cure for acne. A typical keyword to target would be acne cure, or at least you would think so. But what if your cure was a natural one? If somebody was looking for a medical cure or didn’t believe in natural cures, seeing your sales page would probably not trigger a sale, whereas using the keyword phrase “natural acne cure” would. So keyword selection is very important for your PPC campaign, as well as just about any aspect of internet marketing.

Another pitfall of pay per click is geo-targeting. Most internet marketers don’t really give much thought to targeting their PPC campaign to a specific geographical location, but the truth is that running your ad all over the world is not a very good idea. The reason is simple. The world is made up of many different cultures and not all of them are going to be prospects for your particular offer. In some cases, only certain countries would be a viable target for an ad, depending on what the product is. So it’s important to know who your target market is and advertise only to that market.

Then, of course, there is how much people bid for their keywords and the position that they shoot for with their ads. So many beginning internet marketers think that they have to shoot for the number one position on the page. The truth is the top position is a breeding ground for freebie seekers and people who really aren’t ready to buy yet. They’re just starting their search. Lots of money can be wasted on the top position when you could do even better targeting positions 3-7.

Pay per click can be, without a doubt, one of the best forms of internet marketing. But these PPC pitfalls… keyword selection, geo targeting and ad position, along with so many others, can turn your pay per click campaign into a nightmare. That’s why it’s important to make sure that you get yourself a solid PPC education before venturing into pay per click advertising.

Posted in advertising, Internet Marketing, SEM

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