Paid Search

Paid search is the perfect way to boost your traffic while you work your way up the SERPs, and to keep yourself twice as visible once you get there. Making sure your ads catch the eye is paramount, and making sure the landing page they direct the consumer to has a high conversion rate is right up there in order of importance.

There are several ways to participate in paid search. The first is to run your own ads. You can custom design your ads and control quite a few factors to maximize the number of people you reach that fit your target audience.

The first thing you can control is the anchor text of your ad. This is a great place to plug your main keywords, and you can establish what your site is all about.

The second variable is your ad copy. This is where you make your sales pitch to convince the consumer that you have what they are looking for. Keep it to the point – ask a question and answer it if you can, or simply offer a solution to a problem.

Third is your landing page If your landing page isn’t set up to pre-sell, convert the click, and close the deal, you are wasting your adspend. Make sure you immediately give the customer either what they need or a set of simple steps that provide gratification as they complete each one, culminating in the goal.

Fourth is the options for demographic. Google has rigged it so you have a lot more control of when and to whom your ads are actually shown. You want them shown between 6 and 8 PM? No problem.

Last but not least is you get to decide how much to spend. You can set a daily maximum and manage your budget so you don’t run out of money before you start making it.

Google makes it easy to run test drives and try out different campaign strategies – with the new update to their system, you can even start out with ten campaigns and delete them one by one until you are down to one or two that show solid promise. Google can even predict which ones will be your main players!

Another way to manage paid search is to aim it not only at your site, but run a short intensive campaign to your blog or a part of your site to offer something free – an e-book or a tool that you can offer and all the consumer has to do is fill in an email address. This gives you a set of fresh contact information.

You can also direct people to a free newsletter, by having a pre-checked opt in box. They can uncheck it to not subscribe, but odds are they won’t and the you have an audience fore your upcoming specials.

All these contacts will be much more your audience than random mailing lists purchased from a spammer. As you can see, paid search can teach you a lot about who is looking for you, and why!

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