Starting a Google Adwords PPC Ad Campaign

One of the easiest ways to advertise on the Internet is through Pay-Per-Click (PPC) programs like Google AdWords or Yahoo Publisher Network. By advertising through a PPC program, your advertisements appear automatically on relevant websites and search engine results. Most PPC programs use contextual advertising, so your ads only appear if the page is related to your website, ensuring maximum efficiency. However, if you are not careful about how you manage your PPC campaign, the whole endeavor could just lead to a monetary loss.

The first step to starting a PPC campaign is finding a program. The best program is Google AdWords, as it is the most used in the world. The popularity of it has benefits, such as the fact that it is easy to acquire vouchers (such as a free £25 to advertise with). This allows you to test it out and see if your ROI is greater than the investment. However, with PPC programs, you usually have to invest a fair amount, at least £250, to see any real results. If Google AdWords does not work for you, then do not expect any other program to work better. Google has been in the business for years, and their system is time-tested and has been expertly tweaked multiple times.

The most important part of PPC management is finding the right keywords to target. If you go too broad you will get a lot of worthless clicks, but going too narrow will get you hardly any clicks at all. With Google AdWords, you can add as many keywords as you want, so enter dozens of very specific keyphrases, so although each one will only bring you a little traffic, together they will bring you lots of highly-targeted visitors. Do not be afraid to experiment, change your keywords and monthly budget every once in a while and see how the results change. If ROI goes down you can always just return to your previous settings.

As you grow, you can slowly increase your budget and add broader keyphrases to your list. Therefore, you will get more traffic from PPC and therefore more sales. Remember though that up to 10% of all click-throughs are fraudulent, so the more clicks you get, the more will be fraudulent. Once you get high enough in the natural search engine rankings, it may be wise to shut down your PPC campaign entirely.

SE hits are much more valuable than PPC hits, as SE visitors were directly looking for you, and they are free. However, PPC can work for the life of your business, as many established companies with multimillion dollar budgets utilize AdWords and Yahoo Publisher Network as a means of advertising.