As briefly touched on earlier, pay-per-click marketing is a method of advertising that allow you to pay only for those customers that actually visit your website. Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is highly effective, because it sends carefully targeted traffic to your site—in other words, people who are actually looking for the products and services you offer, and not just browsing the ‘Net.

Here’s how PPC marketing works: most programs require you to put a certain amount of money into an “account.” You then bid on certain keywords associated with your product or service. For example, if you were selling ebook creation software, you might choose ebook creator, ebook compiler, ebook software, ebook maker, and simply ebook as some of your keywords. Keep in mind, though, that other PPC advertisers are bidding on the same keywords.

Once you have set your keyword bids, they are not permanent—you can raise or lower them after you discover which ones yield the best results. The PPC program places your website into the top search results, along with the other bidders in order of highest to lowest bidder. When an Internet user clicks on your ad, the bid amount (usually 2 to 25 cents) is deducted from your account.

Many PPC programs will allow you to view a list of real search terms that have been used to find products or services similar to yours. This feature may be called a keyword generator or keyword engine. Take advantage of this as you assemble your list of search terms—the more keywords you list in your bidding, the more traffic you’ll get to your website.

After you have come up with a list of targeted keywords, experiment with them. Visit various search engines and enter your keywords to see what kind of results they generate. Through experimental searches, you can also learn what your competitors are bidding on their keywords and adjust your bids accordingly.

You don’t have to place on the first page of search results to get website traffic. Even if your PPC ads end up on the second or third page, they can still be effective. However, most search engine users don’t get beyond the first three pages or so, which means you have to adjust your bids to ensure you end up somewhere in the top three pages.

Your goal should not be to become the highest bidder on the most popular search terms. With a general term like “ebook” you could easily end up paying a few dollars a click to get on the first three pages, and not all of those clicks will translate to sales. Instead, you should aim to find lesser-used keywords that are highly relevant to your offerings, and turn over a higher clicks-to-sales ratio.

Experiment with your PPC bids and keyword lists until you discover the best balance between traffic and cost per visitor. Once you have determined which keywords generate the greatest results for you, you’ll find yourself much closer to Internet marketing success.

Writing your pay-per-click ad copy: Determining your bidding and keyword strategy is only part of a successful PPC advertising campaign. You may be able to get your ad in front of millions, but if it is not worded compellingly, no one will click through to your website.

The wording of your ad is critical to your PPC marketing strategy. You have an extremely limited number of words to convey your message, and you have to make each one count. Most PPC ads will consist of a headline, a brief sentence of body text, and your hotlink or URL. The headline must be attention-grabbing, clever, and honest—if search engine users click to your site and don’t find what was expected, your reputation will be damaged.

Which headline would you be more likely to click on?

Ebook Software for Sale

or…

Create Great-Looking Ebooks in Just Minutes

Most people would choose the second headline over the first.

After your headline is your body text, which is limited to just a few words or sentences. Once again, your text should be brief, succinct, and to the point. Don’t offer freebies here; some search engine users are simply searching for free offers, and won’t be interested in buying your product or service no matter how compelling it is. Again, make sure that your text demands attention. Rather than:

Use our software to make your own ebooks. We have a wide selection of cover graphics built in to our program. Enjoy our sale prices and special features that are just a click away.

Try something like this:

Turn out professional-looking, fully featured ebooks in minutes instead of hours with our simple user interface and thousands of graphics to choose from. Prices slashed for a limited time!

For more ideas regarding compelling ad copy, do some research! Run searches for products or services similar to yours and read through the pay-per-click ads (typically found in shaded boxes or separate sections at the top and bottom or along the sides of the main search results) to see which ones make you want to click. You may find some ideas to model your own ads after.

Of course, you can also take advantage of multiple pay-per-click advertising programs in order to maximize your exposure. A good strategy is to sign up for PPC programs through several search engines and monitor your results. When you have determined which programs are netting the most visitors and sales conversions, simply discontinue the ones that aren’t working.