What is a Pay Per Click Search Engine?

A Pay Per Click (PPC) search engine is a search engine that allows a person to bid an amount of money on related keywords so their site is ranked according to the amount bid. These are called sponsored listings.

Basically, if you bid $0.25 on the keyword "book" and that is the highest bid on that particular keyword, your site would be displayed in the #1 position at certain search engines. If your competition bids $0.26, they will become #1 and your site will be #2.

A Pay Per Click (also known as Pay Per Ranking, Pay Per Placement or Pay Per Position) search engine enables you to list your site at the top of the search engine sponsored results.

You pay only when a searcher or clicker (I use these terms interchangeably) clicks on your listing and connects to your site. You don't pay to list, you only pay for clicks or click-throughs.

You list your website by selecting keywords that refer to your product or service. For each keyword you determine how much you are willing to spend. The higher you bid the higher you will appear in the search results.

Most businesses will either strictly use PPC in their marketing plan, or they'll split their budget between PPC and SEO. For more information about real estate search engine optimization , click the link at left.

An account with a PPC search engine is a great way to drive targeted traffic to your site because you only pay for actual clicks to your site and you see results (hits to your website) immediately!

The basics of PPC
Designing a successful PPC campaign is simply a matter of choosing the following:

• Targeted keyword phrases
• Compelling ad copy
• Strategic bidding

Let's look at these elements in greater detail:

Targeted keyword phrases: The world of potential keywords is vast. You can choose everything from 'homes' to 'senior living communities in Seattle Washington.' How do we properly target your individual keyword phrases for the maximum effectiveness? We research and brainstorm to decide what target we're going after. For example, {josquote}the more generic your phrase, the more likely it is that you'd have to bid upwards of $5 for every click you get{/josquote}. Plus, who wants visitors that don't know exactly what they're looking for? On the other side of the coin, we also don't want to target our phrases so narrowly that we choose terms that nobody ever searches for. Together, we can create a list of 50 - 100 terms that will bring the visitors you want.

Compelling ad copy: When we're writing your ad copy, we don't want to say just anything. We have just seconds to get that visitors attention, interest and desire to compell them to take action and click on your listing. How do we do so? We sell the benefits. We don't want to talk about what a great real estate agent you are, we want to talk about what your site will deliver to the visitor - listings, no obligation, photos, articles, free stuff! Another element that will increase the effectiveness of our campaign is repeating the keyword in both the title and description to improve your chances of a click.

Strategic bidding: We must bid carefully. We want to keep our listings in the top three spots, but we also don't want to spend too much money. Once the campaign has been created and has run for a brief while, we'll begin to see the patterns and will be able to modify bids if necessary to increase the effectiveness of the campaign.

Remember, you ONLY want your prospective customers to click. And you must know the value of your visitor! (A rough guide: Value = average earnings / average unique visitors .) Try and make sure that the cost of a click never exceeds this 'value' of a visitor.

What is the secret fourth key component to successful PPC campaigns? Website content! While you may see lots of great click-throughs coming into your site from Overture and Google - if those clicks aren't converting to paying customers, then the problem lies in the content of your website. A website viewer is looking for information. If you disuade them from finding it on your site by not having any content or forcing them to fill out complicated forms to obtain it, those searchers will find a competitors site to find what they're looking for.

How do we start a PPC campaign? Simple:

First, we open an account for you at Overture and Google. I recommend these two companies because together, they comprise 95% of the search engine market. Bidding in the top three at Overture will ensure that your listings are displayed at Yahoo and MSN.

Next, we develop your list of around 50 - 100 targeted keyword phrases. Once the campaign is in place, we may decide to drop some and add others, depending on how well they perform.

Writing compelling ad copy that utilizes our keyword phrases and contains a strong 'call to action' will increase our success and finally, strategic bidding on each phrase to maximize our hits while keeping to a reasonable budget. I recommend never bidding more than $2.00 for a hit, no matter what the keyword phrase.

Once the campaign is up and running, I personally monitor both accounts daily to ensure our bids remain in the top three and that everything is working efficiently. I recommend a total budget of $200 split equally between Overture and Google. This can be taken care of automaticaly through these vendors. My fee for monitoring your PPC campaign is $75 per month which includes monthly reports and minor tweaks to the performance. The initial creation of the campaign could take anywhere from 10 to 15 hours, depending on the number of phrases, and whether you need assistance improving your website content - with NO setup fees!

I'm confident I can create very dynamic results for your business with your PPC campaign. Just one closing per month or per quarter easily covers your PPC budget. There is also a very interesting article here that you should read.

Let's get started today! Imagine walking into your office in the morning, only to find tons of hot new prospects! Give me a call anytime if you have questions.