As a blogger, you want to get traffic fast and without much effort. If you have to spend dozens of hours on tedious tasks, you will lose interest; and move on to something more exciting. And this is exactly why PPC advertising can transform your business: it’s easy to set up, it’s effective, it’s fast, and if used correctly, it can drive more traffic than all your other campaigns combined.
When it comes to PPC advertising, you have a number of different options (although some are certainly better than others). The main benefit of PPC advertising is that you can carefully target your traffic sources. Not only can you narrow down your sources according to the keywords they search for, but you can also geo-target them if you think it would be beneficial.
AdWords is probably the easiest and cheapest way to get a lot of traffic. If you decide to use AdWords, I personally suggest that you use the following four steps to set up and manage your campaigns:
Step #1 – Select several groups of similar keywords. Before creating campaigns with AdWords, you should start by creating groups of similar keywords that can be used in a single campaign. As a general rule, each keyword in a group should share the same base keyword. Initially, the benefit of grouping keywords will not be obvious; however, you will see why it works well in the following steps.
Step #2: Outline individual campaigns for each group. Once you’ve finished creating the relevant keyword groups, your next task should be to outline individual campaigns for each of these groups. While some would suggest that you immediately start a campaign; and then move on to the next one, I suggest you don’t.
Personally, I suggest you start by taking your list of keywords and then googling them. This should show the top ads related to your keyword group. Look at these ads and try to pull out a common thread. For example, do they have similar opening lines? And do they have similar calls to action? And what kind of information do they include in the ad?
Work through each ad group, one by one, searching for keywords in the group, and then write this information down on paper or in a document on your computer. Once you’ve collected this information, you should start outlining ads for each group (not just one). Read your ads aloud several times; and ask yourself if they would prompt you to click.
When it comes to writing ads, there are a couple of simple guidelines to keep in mind. The first is to include the base keyword for the campaign’s keyword group in the title and possibly the body of the ad. Since your ad will appear when people search for that base keyword, the parts of your ad that contain it will appear in bold, making it stand out to viewers.
The next tip is to avoid complete sentences. Delete items like it, the, and a. Also, use what little space you have to highlight at least two benefits or features of the product, as well as the price (if it’s low).
Another important tip is to include the keyword in the displayed URL. Since you’re not actually sending clicks to that URL, you can type in any subdomain you’d like. And if it contains the keyword they searched for, it will appear in bold in the results, so they’re more likely to click on your ad.
As a final piece of advice, keep your benefits and features out of the headline. Instead, succinctly summarize your product like this: “Learn Spanish in 5 days.” Or include a bold statement related to your product: “Never pay for shoes again.”
Step #3: Start running your first ad Once you’ve outlined all of your ads (not just one), you can start running them. Start with the one you think is most promising. Once you’ve tweaked it, tested it, and found it works, move on to the next campaign.
Step #4: Manage and continually improve your ads. As a procrastinator, your gut tells you to set things up; and then forget about them. And when it comes to Google AdWords, this is very easy to do. However, in this case, it is very important that you do not take this approach. Ignoring their ads could lead to serious losses; or unrealized potential.
I personally suggest that you review your ads at least three times a week to monitor revenue, click-through rates, and other vital statistics. Also, I suggest you use some kind of tracking method to determine which campaigns are sending buying visitors and which are not. For this, you may simply want to create an identical subdomain for each campaign, so that you can track visitor actions carefully.
