Popular keyword phrases can often run much more than $.12 per click. In fact, some of the most
popular keywords can run as much as $50 (yes, that’s Fifty Dollars) per click. To stretch your PPC
budget, you can choose less popular terms that are much less expensive, but that provide good
results for the investment that you do make.Putting pay-per-click to work
Now that you have your average visitor value, you can begin to look at the different keywords on
which you might bid. Before you do, however, you need to look at a few more things. One of the
top mistakes made with PPC programs is that users don’t take the time to clarify what it is they
hope to gain from using a PPC service. It’s not enough for your PPC program just to have a goal
of increasing your ROI (return on investment). You need something more quantifiable than just
the desire to increase profit. How muchwould you like to increase your profit? How many visitors
will it take to reach the desired increase?Let’s say that right now each visit to your site is worth $.50, using our simplified example, and your
average monthly profit is $5,000. That means that your site receives 10,000 visits per month. Now
you need to decide how much you’d like to increase your profit. For this example, let’s say that you
want to increase it to $7,500. To do that, if each visitor is worth $.50, you would need to increase
the number of visits to your site to 15,000 per month. So, the goal for your PPC program should be
“To increase profit $2,500 by driving an additional 5,000 visits per month.” This gives you a concrete,
quantifiable measurement by which you can track your PPC campaigns.Once you know what you want to spend, and what your goals are, you can begin to look at the dif-
ferent types of PPC programs that might work for you. Although keywords are the main PPC element
associated with PPC marketing, there are other types of PPC programs to consider as well.Pay-per-Click Categories
Pay-per-click programs are not all created equal. When you think of PPC programs, you probably
think of keyword marketing — bidding on a keyword to determine where your site will be placed
in search results. And that’s an accurate description of PPC marketing programs as they apply to
keywords. However, there are two other types of PPC programs, as well. And you may find that
targeting a different category of PPC marketing is more effective than simply targeting keyword
PPC programs.Keyword pay-per-click programs
Keyword PPC programs are the most common type of PPC programs. They are also the type this
book focuses on most often. By now, you know that keyword PPC programs are about bidding on
keywords associated with your site. The amount that you’re willing to bid determines the placement
of your site in search engine results.77
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