Web Design in Oklahoma City

I love pay per click advertising in the sense that it can immediately affect the strategy of your campaign without having to go through the search engine optimization process. If you are using pay per click services, you know how highly competitive online marketing is and how important it is to maximize each click. Unfortunately, all too often I see online advertisers making serious mistakes that cause their pay per click campaigns to suck. In this article, I'd like to help you avoid these issues.

Before I begin, let me ask you a couple of questions:

1. Are you using any tools to measure the effectiveness of your pay per click ads? 
2. Have you spent any time researching user trends and competitors' campaigns?

If the answer to either of the above questions is "no," then it's highly likely that your pay per click campaigns suck. If you're putting your money into paying for ads, you really need to put the time into measuring your results and doing the necessary research.

To get a little more specific, I have compiled a list of common mistakes people make that cause their pay per click advertising efforts to suck:

1. Shooting from the hip. In any search engine marketing effort, choosing the right keywords will greatly impact the success or failure of your campaign. This is especially true in pay per click marketing where one click can cost as much as ten dollars.
2. Coveting number 1. Having the number one spot in organic or pay per click listings is a great thing, but it generally comes with a hefty price tag. Being listed second or third can often save more than a dollar for each click and still deliver traffic. Plus if you work on your Quality Score you could pay less than your competition and still rank higher than them in the sponsored listings.
3. Using generic titles. You have the ability to qualify people who are looking for your service. If you only sell green widgets a generic title would be We Sell Widgets. Your conversion rate and quality score would be much better if you qualified what type of widgets you sell: We Sell Green Widgets. This will help consumers who are looking for green widgets know that you have them and if someone is looking for a blue widget they will probably look elsewhere. This simple step helps save consumers time and more importantly saves you money.
4. Sending them to your homepage. This may be the most common mistake. If you are going to spend money getting traffic, put forth extra effort setting up a unique landing page that will entice users to buy your products or use your services. If this page is setup properly you should see a significant increase in your Quality Score.
5. Not bidding on your business name. Bidding on your name is usually inexpensive and effective so I recommend it.
6. "Woo Hoo! I'm getting traffic!" If your goal in life is to get more traffic than the next guy then you are doing great. However, if your goal is to make money online you need to measure the effectiveness of the dollars you spend.
7. I know my customer. You may think you know everything about your customer but, more often than not, knowing your customers is not enough. You need to use an analytics software and monitor which keywords are converting and mold your campaign around those phrases.

There are many aspects to running a successful online pay per click campaign but it really comes down to one question -- are you making more money than you are spending? If you don't know your ROI then contact one of our Internet Consultants to help you learn how to maximize the effectiveness of your online marketing efforts.