How To Optimize Pay Per Click Search Engine Ads

Pay per click search engine advertising is becoming increasingly popular as they allow anyone to bid for top positions in major search engines and drive immediate traffic within hours of launching a website. In this section I will discuss some ways to optimize your pay per click search engine ads.

17 Pay Per Click Search Engine Optimization Tips

Here are 17 tips on how to optimize your pay per click listings:

  1. Create a list of every single targeted keyword phrase you can find and submit them to the pay per click search engines. For more information on how to find targeted keywords, visit the '32 Keyword Research Tools' section.
  2. If the pay per click search engine does not automatically pluralize keyword phrases, make sure you include plural versions of all keyword phrases.
  3. Create attention grabbing titles. Include the search phrase in the ad title. Often a search engine will highlight the search term in ads in bold. This will help to catch the search engine user's attention.
  4. Compose benefit driven descriptions. Tell your potential customers how your website meets their needs. Spell out the most important benefit/s to encourage prospects to click on your link.
  5. Offer incentives, such as special offers, freebies, product reviews, online coupons, and free trial download to entice prospects to click your ad.
  6. Tell people what to do by including a call to action phrase at the end of the ad. For example, 'Download free 30-day free trial now!'
  7. Minimize the use of stop words. Try to replace them with keywords. Visit the 'What Are Stop Words?' section for more information on stop words.
  8. Monitor the performance of every keyword phrase and ad to track click throughs, click through ratios, conversion ratios, sales and profit margins.
  9. The #1 position gets the most clicks - period. But also try the #2 and #3 positions, as they can turn out to produce a better return on investment than the top position.
  10. Avoid bidding wars. Instead try to find more specific multi-word phrases that cost less per click.
  11. Create landing pages for different keyword phrases to grab the visitor's interest, create desire and invoke action, by leading them to make a purchase decision, or seek more information about your product or service.
  12. Start by setting the maximum cost per click you are willing to pay. Monitor results on a daily basis - hourly if you are getting a lot of click throughs. Decrease cost per click until you hit the perfect balance of visitor numbers and return on investment.
  13. Update your listings as the shopping season changes. For example, Christmas, Easter, Valentines Day, etc.
  14. Including the price in the ad description to deter freebie hunters and to improve click through ratios. I have found that adding prices and discount percentages nearly always improves click through ratios.
  15. Submit listings using misspelled keyword phrases. This may not produce a whole load of clicks, but the chances are your competitors haven't thought about this, so you end up with 100% of the click throughs.
  16. Test! Test! Test! Test every part of your campaign. Test with different keywords, titles, descriptions, bids, landing pages, etc.

    17. This last tip which won't be easy to perform, but is essential if you are spending thousands of dollars a month on pay per click advertising.

  17. I recommend setting up some kind of system to monitor your click throughs for click fraud. By click fraud I am talking about detecting multiple clicks from people who are out to waste your advertising dollars. I have read of horror stories where advertisers have detected their competitors clicking on their ads on a regular basis, racking up tens of thousands of dollars of useless clicks.

    18. Yes, pay per click search engines does have systems in place to track basic click fraud, such as multiple, successive clicks on an ad. But it won't detect 'smart' clicks, such as when people click on different ads at various times of the day, on a daily basis. If you are paying a few dollars a click, it can quickly add up to thousands of wasted dollars. It is up to you to monitor your clicks for click fraud. I recommend you budget for an additional 20-25% on top of your bids to cover click fraud.