![\"Pay](\"http:\/\/www.floristseo.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/11\/PPC.jpg\")
<\/p>\nPay per click advertising is often hard to crack. Therefore, it\u2019s not surprising to find small businesses failing in their attempts to make it work for them. In fact, it has often been suggested in some quarters that Google \u2013 the biggest player in PPC- is effectively against the small business, hence the sometimes astronomically high cost per click. Question is do you have to consistently focus on Google?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
How about Bing\/Yahoo, 7search, Facebook (this is one tough cookie too), Plentyoffish and other PPC engines? Well, the truth is that you can get decent results from other PPC engines. But to drive more sales and get maximum exposure, Google is still the best considering that it\u2019s still the biggest search engine in the world. The only thing is you have to learn and know what you need to do to meet and beat the competition and Google\u2019s requirements. How do you do this?<\/p>\n
In fact, it\u2019s the basis of everything. Miss this and your ad campaign is toast. It\u2019s not just enough to insert keywords, generate a ton of them and then start bidding. This is a sure way to throw money away. Instead, find keywords that are specifically related to your business, segment them into groups and create adgroup-specific landing pages.<\/p>\n
Luckily the new adgroup option in Google\u2019s new Keyword Planner makes this easier. When you enter a search term, the tool automatically groups related and similar keywords together for you. This is always a good place to start. But, <\/i>avoid making the classic newbie mistake \u2013 using the adgroup suggestions as is. Instead, go a step further and drill down.<\/p>\nOptimize the Landing Page for Specific Keywords<\/h2>\n
Google is incredibly big on landing pages \u2013 pages people get to on your website when they click through the ad. All landing pages must be specific to your keyword group. For instance, if you\u2019re bidding on keywords like Sacramento florist<\/i>, and flower delivery in Sacramento,<\/i> your landing page must cater to just those keywords.<\/p>\n
Anything outside that and you\u2019ll reduce your ads\u2019 quality score which will in turn drive your bidding costs up and drop your positions \u2013 if you refuse to up your bidding costs to conform with Google\u2019s suggestions. History is also important. But don\u2019t worry, there\u2019s always room for the new guy.<\/p>\n
To improve your quality score at first \u2013 see the points above \u2013\u00a0you may also need to bid high. Google looks at many factors when determining your quality score. Some of these are obvious, others aren\u2019t. Whatever the case, do the needful.<\/p>\n
If you have to bid high, make sure your ads are optimized for the keywords you\u2019re targeting \u2013 otherwise, that\u2019s money down the drain. Just know that the higher your quality score, the lower your cost per clicks will likely be.<\/p>\n
Always take advantage of the seasons. For instance, you can create and roll out ads specific to Valentine\u2019s Day or Christmas. People buy more during these periods and are looking for gifts to give to their loved ones. You might also want to create different ad campaigns for different periods of the day; one or more for the busy periods – between 8am – 4pm, another for the less busy periods \u2013 between 4-7pm.<\/p>\n
This can effectively lower your ad costs. And make sure to split test all your ads. Test the landing pages, test the keywords, test the ad copy, test the time frame, test the headlines, the fonts, the font size, the bullet points\u2026 test everything! This is how to win the PPC war.<\/p>\n
While these tips are by no means exhaustive, they\u2019ll surely help give you an edge over your competition. Have any other ideas? We want to hear from you. Sound off in the comments section.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pay per click advertising is often hard to crack. Therefore, it\u2019s not surprising to find small businesses failing in their attempts to make it work for them. In fact, it has often been suggested in some quarters that Google \u2013 the biggest player in PPC- is effectively against the small business, hence the sometimes astronomically high cost per click. Question is do you have to consistently focus on Google?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1520,"featured_media":720,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pay-per-click"],"yoast_head":"\n