Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising is a good supplement to natural search engine optimization, IF you keep a few tactics straight.

1. Choose the right search terms.
If you go after the broad phrases and terms, you’ll pay top dollar. Strive for more descriptive and specific search terms that reflect your products or services.

2. Map out a strategy.
Don’t go after every possible keyword or phrase. Target your online ads around business priorities–such as seasonal purchases, your most profitable products and services, etc.

3. Use bid management software.
Software can regulate your bids and turn off keywords. You might be interested in clicks during business hours; you might not want to pay for those clicks at 1 a.m. (There’s less of a chance that it’s a business prospect at that time of night).

4. Write effective ads.
Google, Yahoo! Searching Marketing and other services have limits on characters per line. With Google, it’s tough not to push the limits because space is so narrow. With Yahoo! Searching Marketing, focus on getting your message across without consuming every character. Long ads may discourage people from reading them.

5. Test. Test. Test.
Try different keywords, ad copy, landing pages and calls to action. Put your budget – whatever size it is – to the best use after effective evaluation.

The Search Engine Marketing Industry is estimated to reach $23 billion by 2010.

The vast majority of SEM investment in the coming years will involve pay-per-click. We applaud the SEM vendors and companies who can prepare a coherent plan that produces outstanding conversions.

But for all the clicks and conversions via pay-per-click, many SEM players will miss the lead generation that natural SEO offers through greater Internet acceptance and traffic. The fact is, people are far more likely to click on a natural listing. Studies show that about 60%-70% of the links people click on are organic, not the PPC variety.

Again, be careful how you spend your online advertising dollars. Make them work for you!

Michael Murray is vice president of Fathom SEO, a Cleveland, Ohio-based search engine marketing (SEM) firm. A member of Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), he also authored the white paper, “Search Engine Marketing: Get in the Game.”

michael@fathomseo.com

On Friday, July 15th all Google advertisers got the email message entitled “Google AdWords(TM) Announcement: Keyword Evaluation Changes”. Now, I don’t know about you, but whenever I get a message from Google concerning Adwords, everything else seems to take a backseat.

So we’ve decided to give you a heads up on what you can be expecting in the future, how you can expect these new changes to effect your advertising efforts, and what you should be doing to make sure that you can compete after they’ve been implemented.

First, here is a brief summary of the changes so you understand what exactly is going on:

1. Keywords will simply be active or inactive, instead of Normal, in trial, on hold, disabled.

2. There will be a minimum bid for each of your keywords based on the keyword’s Quality Score which, in turn, will be based on your ad’s click-through rate. The higher-relevant, more targeted, ads will have higher Quality Scores and lower minimum bid amounts. The less-relevant and less-targeted keywords and ads will have higher minimum bids. Now the difference from Google’s old way of doing things is that you can now activate your keywords no matter what. Before, it was up to Google. They would simply place your keywords on hold, and you didn’t have a choice, but try to optimize your ad. Now, you can get that keyword to run, regardless of its quality score?but you’ll have to pay a much higher price per click.

What does all of this mean for the advertiser? Well, it means a few things, and it would be foolish to say that these changes were all good. They are definitely all good for Google, and that is to be expected.

1. Google says that they believe these changes will result in higher-quality ads. Maybe this is true, and maybe it’s not. What is true is that the educated advertisers will save money under the new rules. People that know how to group ads and get higher CTR’s will have to pay less for the same ad rank as those advertisers that do not know such techniques. That’s a good thing for small advertisers who spend time organizing their Adword accounts.

2. But? on the flip side, it also means that big advertisers with big budgets can now come in and write ineffective ads and get good placement. Notice above, we didn’t say that this change was all necessarily good for small advertisers. What is true is that small advertisers will have to become more educated to compete. Big advertisers care about branding. They want to have the number 1 ad slot, and most of the time, they don’t really care what it costs. Now, in the old days, if their ad wasn’t getting clicks, the ad simply wouldn’t get shown (good for the small advertiser). But now, they can just pay more to have their ad shown. This was a good move by Google to get a lot more money in their pocket.

3. Conversion rate becomes the key. If your site converts, you can afford to pay more per click, in turn, you can compete. If your site doesn’t convert, you’ll be eliminated by the big advertisers and/or the smart advertisers. That’s the bottom line. The first step is not getting the traffic to your site like so many teach. But conversely, it’s getting your site in a position to support the clicks.

Here are 3 action steps you can work on to make sure that you will be competing in the Adwords game for some time to come. We realize that each of these steps can be broken down into months of work, but don’t let yourself get caught up in too many details. Just focus on these three things before you start getting too in depth with changing your Adwords accounts around, give each of them a quick rehaul, and make sure you know your numbers.

1. You need to get educated and learn the system. Grouping keywords, writing good ads, keyword selection, it’s all equally important and will play a large role in the future of your Adwords campaign.

2. You’ll also need to get your site converting well enough to support these clicks. Otherwise you’ll lose money very quickly. The formula is [number of sales made / visitors to your site]. On the internet you should realistically be aiming for about 1%.

3. Finally, you need to determine the visitor value of your site. This will tell you how much you can afford to bid on clicks. The formula is [dollars made by your site / visitors to your site]. Plan on bidding about 50% of your site’s visitor value.

So, in summary, if you want to compete in the Adwords marketplace in the future, you need to take action, actively monitor your account, and know your numbers. Your goal is to run a profitable business. If you focus on the three action steps above you’ll know your place in the market, you’ll be ready to compete, and you’ll make money using the new Adwords system.

John Rooney and David Nevogt are well known ebook authors that focus on internet-based niche selling. If you have a website that is not performing or you want to learn how to frame a profitable business around an online product, subscribe to the newsletter at http://www.ebooksaleskit.com

My first real foray into Internet Marketing was a Pay Per Click ad campaign. I really had no idea what I was getting myself into and the results were predictable. I soon had a mountain of debt with little in the way of results to show for it.

It wasn’t the Pay Per Click company’s fault. They basically did what they pronised to do. They got people to my website. The blame was all mine. I had made a couple of serious mistakes during the planning of my campaign. I will share those mistakes so that you can avoid making those same errors yourself.

My first, and probably biggest, mistake was not “looking before I leaped”. I did not take the time that I should have in researching Pay Per Click and learning just how much it could potentially cost. As a result, I was completely caught by surprise by how quickly my credit card was being charged over and over again. Take the time to do the proper amount of research before beginning a Pay Per Click campaign or any other business or advertising opportunity. You should always be aware of the cost or risks of any program before you invest money or time on it.

I made another major mistake when I did not set a daily budget for my campaign. That was a direct result of my ignorance about how much Pay Per Click could actually cost. I did learn an extremely valuable lesson though. Always set a budget. Determine beforehand exactly how much you can afford to spend per week or per month. Be disciplined and stick to it. You should always try to avoid going into debt unless it is absolutely necessary.

The final mistake that I regret was waiting too long to pull the plug on the campaign. I suppose that stubborness set in and I just did not want to admit defeat. However, admitting defeat is sometimes not so bad. If you sense that an opportunity is not working out, then cut your losses. No purpose whatsoever is served by throwing more good money after the bad. Always know “when to say when”.

Learn from my mistakes. Alway do your research before pursuing Pay Per Click or any other new opportunity. Be sure to set a weekly or monthly budget and stick to it. And, finally, if an opportunity is not working out, then don’t give in to stubborness. Cut your losses right away.

Copyright 2005 Ronald Gibson

Ronald Gibson is a Web Designer and Web Marketer. He is the Webmaster of AffiliateUtopia.com, which offers information about some of the best money making opportunities on the Web. For more information, visit: http://www.affiliateutopia.com/

First of all, you know as well that Google is still the #1 Search Engine in the net, leaving Overture at the second place. If you type a word or a phrase in Google’s search box and press “enter”, a large number of links will appear in front of you, related to the subject you’ve typed earlier.

Take a look at the right hand side of the main page. There should be another group of links complete with their descriptions, right? Only, these ones are much smaller than those main link results. What is the difference?

Do you see the subtitle: Sponsored Links? Those link results on the right hand side is called Google AdWords. People bid a certain price to Google to put their links on there everytime visitors search for related keywords. Those advertisers are only paying for the numbers of click-throughs to their links. This kind of advertising is called the Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising.

In order to reach a higher position in the link results, Google has set up a unique formula. Let’s say you want to put your link in Google AdWords and you bid for “flowers” as your main keyword. You are not the only one who bid for that keyword. There are lots of people who also bid for it, since they also want to promote their “flowers” sites!

The unique formula of Google AdWords is that you can’t reach the #1 position only by increasing your bidding price. Google also considers your Click Through Rate (CTR). CTR is a value that represents how many click-throughs (clicks on your ad) you get among your ad’s impressions. Too many difficult words?

OK, let’s try it this way… Impressions is the frequency of your ad’s appearance in the search engine’s result page. If your ad appears 500 times, than your ad’s impression is 500. But, of course you don’t get a click everytime your ad shows up. From those 500 impressions, perhaps you only get 1 click. This makes your CTR = 1/500 = 0.002 = 0.2%

The better the CTR you have for an ad, the lower you have to bid for the same position.

That means, Google also rewards the good content of your ad. When your ad gets a lot of click-throughs, that means you have a good ad and Google rewards you for that! Your ad is good according to Google if your ad is relevant with the content of your site.

In Google AdWords, the rich ones don’t always win – the smart ones do!

Of course there are still a lot of things we haven’t touch regarding Google AdWords, but we have to do it later. After all, this is a quick overview for beginners, right?

Copyright 2005 Farid Aziz.

Farid Aziz is a full-time Internet Marketer. Reveal more of his FREE tips and strategies on Internet Marketing and get a FREE Course on How to Make Money Online with Your Hobby at Internet Marketer Sells

If you’re an active Adsense publisher, I’m sure you have seen irrelevant Adsense ads on your site. Right? I’ve experienced them too.

Not only these ads do not relate to your website content, they will not get clicked as well.

Recently I’ve figured out several ways how to solve this problem.

1- Try adding META tags to your web page. The most important tags are TITLE, DESCRIPTION and KEYWORDS.

2- Rename your html file. Don’t use a generic name. Instead, use your keyword(s) as your file name. For example, if the page is about making money with Adsense, simply name it make-money-with-adsense.htm.

3- Try refreshing your page again and again until you see relevant ads displayed. You can refresh the page by clicking on the refresh button, or pressing F5 key on your keyboard.

4- If any of the above tricks do not work, you can send an email to Google Adsense Support telling them about the problem. Don’t hesitate. Their support team will reply to your email shortly.

I’ve experienced this problem with several sites of mine, and it was solved 2-3 days after contacting Google Adsense team.

Mohd Fairuz maintains a website called AdSense Insider Secrets. On his site, he shares with his visitors free tips, secrets & strategies how he managed to boost his Google AdSense earnings by 700%.

Go to his website, and get the tips, free of charge at: http://www.adsense-insider-secrets.com

Webmasters have a revolutionary new method of collecting income from their websites. Whereas in the past advertising revenue was reserved for those sites with large a coming and going of visitors, now even teenagers are making a quick buck with their online hobby blogs. People place adsense on their online family photo albums, their blogs and their business sites. The minimum you would get, even with a small amount of traffic, is for adsense to pay for your hosting costs.

Adsense revolutionized the world of paid advertising; banner advertising is based on the number of visitors you attract to your site, so the number of “banner impressions” dictate the revenue you receive. Google Adsense is quite different; it is the number of visitors that actually click on the advertising that determine how much you earn.

There is also a great disparity between payouts; because advertisers bid up the price for certain keywords, some ads pay more than others. As such, a site with few visitors but expensive keywords in their google ads can potentially still pull in a hefty payout.

Google really has taken the web by storm; attracted to passive income, more and more people are seriously capitalizing on their Google adsense advertising. Some of the highest earners manage to attract enough visitors to make a four figure monthly income, just from using adsense alone! This is not one of those get-rich-quick schemes and Google’s adsense success is largely thanks to the fact that Google already enjoyed a fantastic reputation before introducing the program. They are a publicly traded company with physical headquarters. This, and the fact that anyone can apply to use adsense for free, has caused millions of people to sign up. For google it was a smart move, because now they extend their presence to countless websites and generate millions of dollars in advertising revenue. People were never reluctant to sign up, because the program is free. Google benefits by more people using adsense, so offering it for free was the best thing they could do.

One of the driving forced behind the program are its relevance to each and every page on a website; the program picks up keywords appearing in the website copy and automatically displays relevant ads. This increases the chances of people clicking through, and the webmaster collecting more revenue.

People are leveraging their income by operating several websites and attempting to attract as many targeted visitors as possible; in many instances we can observe that people work hard at a site, then once it is established they can largely leave it alone, yet still collect significant checks.

A major concern for entrepreneurs was the danger of a competitors ads showing up on their site; thanks to the adsense feature where it only displays relevant advertising. However this problem was solved by offering webmasters the option of filtering out unwanted ads. They can submit the URL of the competing site in their account, and any ads from the website will be blocked.

Google recently came out with a new feature: small targeted keywords based on the site’s content are displayed; then as people click on those, a page opens showing a variety of pay-per-click ads based on that keyword. This gives webmasters the chance of displaying more advertising in less space.

Adsense also adds creditability to your website; the more focused the content, the better the ads will be and this encourages people to built high quality websites. These make the net a better place and generally provide a free service; site owners can afford to share their expertise or passions because they can receive indirect revenue’s. The visitor does not pay for the information; instead the advertisers do, making the website’s existence possible in the first place.

It is no surprise Google adsense is the most widely used form of advertising; they have created a program that is beneficial to both advertisers and users with their “no click no pay” mechanism, or more popularly called “pay-per-click”. Advertisers do not pay for ads that are not drawing visitors, and website owners are paid more for each click than they would if the system were based on the number of people viewing the ads, instead of clicking on them.

All in all Google adsense has developed itself into a powerful tool, used by large corporations and the kid next door. They have truly revolutionized how the web thinks about advertising and made the process more profitable for site owners, while less costly for advertisers.

Matt Bacak, The Powerful Promoter and Entrepreneur Magazine e-Biz radio show host, became a “#1 Best Selling Author” in just a few short hours. He has helped a number of clients target his specialty, opt-in email direct marketing systems. The Powerful Promoter is not only a sought-after internet marketer but has also marketed for some of the world’s top experts whose reputations would shrivel if their followers ever found out someone else coached them on their online marketing strategies. For more information, visit Bacak’s site at http://www.powerfulpromoter.com or sign up for his Powerful Promoting Tips at http://www.promotingtips.com

Watch out for a shift in the pay-per-click (PPC) industry, happening right now! This shift is finally going to give smaller search engines and directories the ability to tap into the PPC market, currently monopolized by the big guns online (Google, Yahoo & MSN). They will attain this lofty goal by banding together and delivering paid ad placements on a mass community scale for a fraction of the cost.

More and more advertisers are going to want to advertise through the ISEDN because of the sheer amount of exposure that they will be able to receive through all the search engines and directories partnered together through this network.

I was able to be the first to interview Mel Strocen, CEO of Jayde Online, Inc., the parent company of ExactSeek.com.

The Independent Search Engine & Directory Network (ISEDN) was an outgrowth of ExactSeek’s commitment to bring affordable and effective search advertising to the web community. Although ExactSeek was successful in partnering with a number of search engines and directories, it became apparent that popularization of a new pay-for-inclusion program would be better served by an active and independent association of search engines and directories than by a single engine.

Here are some excerpts from that interview:

Martin: “When was the ISEDN formed? ( http://www.isedn.org )”

Mel: “The organization was officially founded in June of this year, although the idea for a network of this kind was being discussed for several months previous to that. The ISEDN website, however, is only a few days old.”

Martin: “How many members does the ISEDN network have right now?”

Mel: “47 members at the moment, but the network has been acquiring new members at a rate of 3 – 5 per week.”

Martin: “What kind of market reach can the network deliver?”

Mel: “It really depends on how big the network becomes. Some search engine and directory members have reported 10,000,000+ searches/month but, given the rapid growth of the ISEDN and the fact that it’s only a few weeks old, we really haven’t had the opportunity to determine the total number of search impressions the network can deliver. We expect to receive specific numbers from the members in the coming weeks which will enable us to provide a more accurate picture of the network’s search reach. My best guesstimate right now is that pay-for-inclusion listings are displayed approximately 120 million times per month. Of course, that figure will grow as the ISEDN grows.”

Martin: “Why should advertisers choose the ISEDN network over Google or Yahoo?”

Mel: “The most obvious reason is cost. An advertiser buying a 3 or 12 month listing is looking at a cost of $3 – $4 a month. I’m not aware of any other engine that can match what the ISEDN offers in terms of value or exposure. Where else can you buy targeted keyword terms for less than $5 a month and get top 10 exposure for your site listings across 45+ search engines and directories?”

Martin: “You’re right, that is amazing!”

Martin: “Because of the sheer distribution size this could potentially have, what preventive measures are being implemented for click fraud?”

Mel: “In the ISEDN advertising model there is no incentive for click fraud to occur. You pay a one time fee for your selected keyword term and that’s it. Competitors or bots could click on your ad repeatedly and it wouldn’t cost you a penny more. With the monetary motive for click fraud removed, it’s unlikely to be a problem.”

Martin: “What does the future hold for the ISEDN?”

Mel: “It’s a little early for me to speculate on how the ISEDN might evolve. ExactSeek is just one member. Future plans will depend on member participation and input in the coming months. What I would like to see is for the ISEDN to become a counter weight to the gradual monopolization of search on the Web by engines such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN. I would also like to see the ISEDN contribute in other areas related to search such as search relevance and possibly the support of open source search software. In the long term, I believe the Web and searchers in general will be better served by diversity than by monopoly.”

Martin: “Are members going to decide the future of the network?

Mel: “The short answer is yes, they will. To function effectively, the ISEDN will in time need to implement some kind of governing structure that determines the organization’s future course. What that structure is and how the ISEDN evolves will depend on input from the members. Initially, direction and objectives will most likely be determined by majority concensus.

We’ve just added a private member discussion forum to the ISEDN website which will allow members to voice their views on issues such as the network’s direction, objectives, online advertising, governing structure, network promotion and other topics of relevance to the membership.

Martin: “So will any of the discussions from the network forum be opened up to the public?”

Mel: “Eventually, yes. Assuming public interest, we’ll setup discussion forums that allow webmasters and/or siteowners to ask questions and provide feedback to individual ISEDN members or to the membership as a whole. If we go this route and, I expect we will, it should help to improve communication between searchers and search providers. It should also help raise general public awareness of the many excellent directories and search engines on the Web that currently are under the radar.”

Martin: “So how does the advertising portion work?”

Mel: “Every ISEDN member is provided with an XML feed to implement within their search results or directory listings. The feed can be modified by the individual members so that pay-for-inclusion listings are displayed in a way that matches their site look and feel, but regardless of how the listings are displayed, advertisers are guaranteed top 10 exposure across the entire ISEDN network. Premium placement of this kind is made possible by the fact that we limit the number of times any one keyword term can be purchased and because all paid listings are rotated in the SERPs (search engine result pages) on each individual engine and directory.

Surveys have consistently shown that few searchers look at more than 30 search results for any given search query. The ISEDN advertising model takes this into account and limits the sale of any keyword term to 30. If a keyword term has been sold less than 10 times, the paid listing almost always appears on the first page of search results (depends on how many listings an ISEDN member displays per page) although not always in the same position. If a keyword term has been sold more than 10 times then paid listings begin to rotate between the SERPs. On sold out keyword terms, the worst case scenario for an advertiser would be that his listing would appear on the first page of results roughly once of every 3 searches on his keyword term. This is somewhat offset, however, by the fact that the system supports broad keyword matching as well as exact keyword matching.

Martin: “With this first come, first serve program – Are you worried that bigger companies will buy out all the keywords available?”

Mel: “Not really. There are literally millions of keyword term combinations available. As the more obvious terms are bought out, it might require more creative thinking on the part of advertisers to come up with good searchable terms, but other than that, I don’t anticipate a problem. Based on current trends, many buyers either forget to renew their keywords or simply let their listings expire. The end result is that thousands of keyword terms will be rolling over on a continual basis. In the event that the program becomes so wildly popular that keyword availability does become a problem, we may have to look at changing the parameters of the system to accomodate demand, but that’s unlikely in the forseeable future.”

THIS IS AN ADVERTISER’S DREAM!

Anytime a PPC or paid inclusion ad can get distributed through an entire network of competitors, it has the potential to be very powerful and deliver a lot of quality results. Personally, I would much prefer to advertise within 100 websites rather than just one. The power of advertising is in the numbers!

This couldn’t have come at a better time. The SEO industry is crying for quality PPC alternatives. Google’s recent battle with click fraud has left many advertisers world wide wondering if they should really keep their entire internet advertising budget within one basket.

Increase Your ROI Through Smaller Programs Online:

More and more, Smartads is recommending paid advertising in smaller, more tightly knit search engines and directories to our clients. ROI (Return on investment) is very important to the adverising industry, and we have found that advertising in smaller ventures rather than the bigger gorillas online, brings better results.

The reason for this is simple:

* – Less competition * – Greater targeted audience * – More local opportunities * – More exposure for your money

In the old days, creating smaller, more targeted PPC campaigns used to be a lot of work for the marketing professional to research and maintain. The ISEDN has made that job a lot easier for us to maintain on a larger scale. Why would spend hours trying to find smaller directories and other programs, when you can find them under one umbrella?

To check out this internet advertising shift for yourself, go here: http://www.isedn.org

About The Author:

Martin Lemieux is the president of the Smartads Advertising Network. Smartads helps all sorts of companies world wide to grow their business offline and online. Visit Today!

International: http://www.smartads.info Canada: http://www.smartads.ca

Copyright © 2005 Smartads Advertising Network – Reprints Accepted. Author resource must be included!

Pst! Wanna know some Adsense secrets? The only secret is that there are no secrets per se!

Do a search for Adsense secrets and you will be bombarded by a myriad of ads by trying to sell you the answers to making lots of money with Adsense.

Before you buy anything, my advise to you would be to do some research on a search engine and a bit of common sense. There are literally hundreds of forums where you can pick up valuable information, as well as hundreds of articles that have been written on the subject of Adsense.

Most of the answers are out there for you to find it you will put in a little bit of work. If you buy any of the ebooks available out there, you might find one little nugget of information that you may not have seen anywhere else, but I promise you: most of the time everything is out here on the Internet – all you have to do is search for it. Here are some of the search terms that I personally have used with great results:

increase adsense income
increase your adsense income
adsense experiments
adsense adsense tricks
adsense tips

What I can tell you from my own experience is this:

1. Ads at the top of the page and on the left of the page perfom better than any other ads. (Take a look at the “heatmap” from the Google link below)

2. Ads without background colour and borders perfom better than ads within borders with background colour.

3. Ads within content pages perform better than any other ads.

4. A search box on every page gives you another chance for earning Adsense income.

5. A blue link at the top of the ad, the ad in black, and the url also in black so that it blends in with the ad copy – also tends to perform well. A black url makes the link stand out and gives you a better chance of someone clicking on it.

Google has brought out some great Adsense optimization tips. You can read it here: Google Adsense optimization tips

Experiment with your settings and see which brings you the best results. Google’s reporting has become a lot better in the last month or so, so you should instantly be able to see which ads result in better CTR.

To increase your site traffic, which obviously will increase your Adsense income, the best way to get traffic is to have fresh content at your site. Write your own articles and submit it to article directories like Go Articles etc. To find more article directories, just do a search for “free article directory submissions” on a search engine like Google.

Another way would be to publish articles by other authors that are relevant to your site content. You can find free articles all over the web by once again doing a search for e.g. “free site content”.

Do this on a regular basis and watch your traffic (and your income) increase.

Joan Masterson is the owner of http://www.womenatwork.co.za – and http://www.set-4-success.com – sites that offers free work at home resources and information