Google has revolutionized Internet marketing by offering pay-per-click advertising solutions that make advertisements visible over a broad range of participating websites instead of just a few that advertisers used to have to pick on their own. With this kind of advertising, you pay only for actual clicks on your advertisements rather than for displaying them. In setting up your Google marketing strategy, though, make sure to use good business sense to find the most cost-effective way of getting people to your website.
Split Testing
The most basic way of determining which listings are more effective is by split testing. This is when you make two similar listings and pay close attention to their performance, abandoning the less-effective one in preference of the more-effective one. For instance, "Wisconsin real estate deals" vs. "Deals for Wisconsin real estate" may appear to be almost identical, but one listing may prove more effective than the other.
Focusing on the Target Market
Instead of picking whatever keywords will bring you the most website traffic, try to pick keywords that appeal specifically to the types of people who will be interested in buying your product or service. For example, if you sell clothing especially for skateboarders, it may seem intuitive to pick key words such as "fashion" or "apparel," but this target market might not be prone to use such words, and spending money on such advertising could just result in large numbers of people visiting your website and not buying anything.
Incrementally Increasing the Budget
Do not approach pay-per-click advertising with the attitude that you will only spend so much on it per month and no more. As you are successful with your advertising campaign, gradually increase your advertising budget and watch the numbers. If the increased budget brings increased returns, keep adding to your budget. Continue to do this until the marginal benefit declines.
Target Competitors' Customers
If a potential buyer enters your competitor's name as a keyword, the first listing on the search results will probably be your competitor's website. However, when he looks down the list of advertisements in the margin, you can have your website there. This is one of the best ways of getting clicks from highly likely buyers because, since they are looking specifically for your competitor, you already know that they are in the market for your type of product. Advertisers sometimes shy away from mentioning competitors in their advertisements because they are afraid that it could be free advertising for their competitors. However, in this case, the customer has already shown himself to be partial to your competitor, so using your competitor's name in this way does not risk anything.
