Search Engine Guide readers have seen articles about how to set up a Pay-Per-Click campaign. The majority of such articles are written for beginner website owners who don't receive much website traffic and have never done the comprehensive keyword research that is so critical for any successful internet effort.



Use Google's Keyword Tool to drill down and find more nuanced keywords for each of your pay per click campaigns. For instance, let's say you're going to drive traffic to a site about fences. One of your keyword groups might be a steel fences and another might be a wood fences. Using Google's Keyword Tool will allow you to generate more than a dozen additional related phrases for each keyword.

Always test your landing pages when using pay per click to generate traffic. If one setup has a woefully bad conversion rate, you will want to switch to something else. Even if it doesn't, you will want to continually tweak your landing pages until you achieve an optimal conversion rate until changes only decrease your conversion rate.

Convey specific benefits in your Google Adwords advertisement. For instance, if you are selling DVDs that show someone how to shoot basketball free throws, communicate precisely how much better it will make them (i.e. sink 50% more free throws). Additionally, communicate precisely how long it will take to achieve those results (i.e. do it all in only 7 days).

Once you have determined a rough conversion rate and an average lifetime worth per customer -- you can then determine how much you can reasonably spend per lead. For instance, if the average lifetime worth of a customer is $100 and your conversion rate is 1%, at most you will be able to spend $1 per lead and even then, you will only break even.

Once you have created multiple financially solvent pay per click advertising campaigns on Google Adwords, you will then want to consider using other forms of pay per click advertising. This includes Overture's Network; Yahoo's Network, and MSN's Network, whish is currently operating in Beta format.

Always use a call to action in your pay per click campaigns. Some calls to action include click here, start now, join now, learn more, and don't miss out. These calls to action will provoke those who read the advertisement to click, rather than wandering off to the next advertisement to see if it might offer something better.

Take advantage of all pay per click advertising system resources. Google Adwords, for instance, released an extensive course that explains precisely how to get the best results from advertising. Rather than spending your money on an expensive course, get all of the information straight from the horse's mouth before you go anywhere else.

If possible, in your Adwords or PPC campaigns, use a sub domain or extension that includes your targeted keyword or key phrase for the given campaign. This will catch the searcher's attention, as he/she will associate your advertisement with the specific keyword for which he was searching. This will increase your click-thru rate.