PPC is Pay Per click Marketing. Not sure what that is? Just do a search on Google or another search engine and look to the left (and sometimes the top) for ‘sponsored listings’. You, the business owner, set these up so only interested parties see the adverts. If they click on the adf, you pay a small fee; if they don’t click, you don’t pay.

PPC marketing is best well suited for those websites that have not yet established themselves in the world of the organic search engine results, or if you have something that is time-sensitive and you want to promote it now!

But PPC does have a downside as well. PPC can cost you thousands of dollars in marketing dollars if you do not take time to carefully plan out your PPC marketing campaign. Against popular PPC marketing is not just selecting a few keywords and designing your advertisement, actually there is much more involved. There are tips though that you can use to reduce your PPC marketing cost and create a great marketing campaign as a result.

1. Competitors
The best way that you can start off your PPC marketing campaign is to check out the competitors.  Look and see what kind of strategies that they may be using to market their business. There are tools that you can purchase that will help you have a fair idea of the advertising strategies of your competitors.  The most important thing for you to pay attention to when you are looking at the competitors ads are the keyword placement, ad body, and where the ads are being placed on their site.

2. Keyword Variations
It is important for your PPC marketing campaign to incorporate proper keywords in suitable variations throughout your website. If your keywords are not placed properly then all your other efforts will be effortless.  You need to take considerable time when you are creating your keywords. Careful research of what keywords people are searching for will aide you in your keyword search.

3.Keywords to avoid
If you begin your PPC campaign off by using hypercompetitive keywords you are setting yourself up for spending tons of money and your marketing budget will dry up quickly.  However, there are a lot of low cost keywords that you can use with proper matching techniques that will be able to save you money in the long run.

4. Call to action terms
Your call to action terms is very important to your PPC marketing campaign.  If you use words such as ‘click here’ or ‘buy here’ customers will not be as apt to follow the directions because they feel it is just a high priced gimmick.  However, if you use the words ‘sale’, ‘discount’, ‘great tips to use your flip cam’, or exact models like ‘Zophia 3-2-X-A”, you will do better – these are terms that the customers are looking for and are more apt to click on the links as long as you deliver what you promise on the other side.

By the way, if you don’t want people who are just seeking freebies, you can instruct your campaign not to show your ad when people type in ‘free’ in the search box.

5. Honest
It is ok to make a mistake but be honest and correct it and apologize to your visitor. Also when you are using PPC marketing all your information should be honest with no false information. The false information will turn your customer away. It will also leave your site with a negative reputation. If you are practicing dishonesty in your site you are only going to accrue the cost with no returns in the end result. Make sure your link leads to the promised site – and perferably to the exact page (so they don’t have to search).

6. Review your ad performance
Make sure you check on your PPC ads on a daily basis. This will allow you room for fixing any errors that you may inquire.  It will also allow you time to optimize your site if you are not seeing the results that you are seeking.

Making money with your PPC marketing campaign can make you tons of cash if it is done correctly. The more time and effort that you put into the PPC marketing campaign the more revenue you stand to generate in the end. If you do use PPC to send people to a squeeze (sign-up) page, make sure there is plenty of content on it as well (below the form, of course), as Google doesn’t favour pages with little content when you’re4 using PPC.