[Back]

Search Engine PPC How to Make Money with Google and Other Ad Networks

One of the quickest ways to make money online is through search engine PPC. But, you have to do it right because one of the quickest ways to lose money on the internet is also through search engine PPC.

Pay per click is a form of advertising where you only pay for the ad space if someone clicks through and lands on your web site. Google’s Adwords is the largest network of search engine PPC. Yahoo and MSN constitute the “second tier” while a number of less expensive engines can deliver targeted traffic starting at only 1 cent a click.

While some of the third tier ad networks still rank the ads according to the maximum bid, Google revolutionized search engine PPC when they set Adword’s functions to rank ads on a combination of the price of the ad and the click through rate. Yahoo and MSN quickly followed suit.

The logic behind this is that if Google gets $1.00 for an ad that 100 people click through and $0.50 for an ad 500 people click through, they will make more money off the lower priced ad. Therefore, they will reward the lower priced ad with a higher placement on the search results.

That’s good news for strong copywriters. If you can convince people to click on a 95 character ad, you will be able to get more traffic at a lower price.

Now, some copywriters get pages and pages of copy to sell something. As a PPC copywriter, you have only a few characters. So, you have to make every one of them count.

The actual number of characters varies from ad network to ad network. Google Adwords allows you 25 characters in the headline and two 35 word body text lines. You also get to place a link to your web site in the ad.

One way to get search engine users to click through to your web page is to list a benefit in the form of a question. For instance “Do you want to get rid of acne forever?” is a benefit in the form of a question.

When you set up your campaigns, you will want to have the main keyword appear in your ad. This becomes bolded when a person types the keyword into the search engine and draws a viewer’s eye to the ad. For instance, if you have a product about weight loss, write one ad featuring the word “weight loss” and another ad featuring the word “diet.” If you just go with “diet” when some one types in “weight loss” your ad might be listed but the keywords won’t be highlighted. Think of all of the variations of your word like “lose weight,” “keep the weight off,” and “lose fat.”

Another factor you should consider when developing your ads is the keyword competition. Unless you have the money to blanket your market, you will want to choose keywords that do not have much competition. This way, you can get keyword terms that deliver traffic to your site for less money. As I write this, to get the number 1 position on the keyword “fast diet” you would have to pay $6.26. However, there are a wide variety of keywords going for $0.05 – Adword’s minimum amount. These include “your weight loss” and “lose weight metabolism.”

Finally, it is important with any Search Engine PPC campaign to constantly test and tweak your ads. You need to know what ads are being clicked on and what ads are converting. You can use the Google analytics program to tell you this.

You can make a fortune or lose your shirt on Search Engine PPC so learning everything about the system is important before you commit your hard earned dollars.