New to PPC - Advice needed

[DLINKLA]

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I am completely new to PPC and how to get the best results.

So far I have identified the keywords I would like.

Now the bidding process. Like everyone else I need to be on page 1 of search engine.
Is there anyway to gtd that my site will be on page 1 via ppc.

Ae there any tools that can help me find out how much it will cost me to be on page 1 etc etc.


What budget should I give myself

My head is completely mashed


Thanks for any help

[Michael_Anthony]

We can help you for free - sign up today.

As a start, I promise you that you really DON'T need to be on page one, you need to make a profit.

[Harlem]

Hi There,

When you are in your google account select the tools icon. You will see simple techniques of finding best keywords but also price of each wird etc. HAve a play around you will find it really useful.

Thanks

[Shane]

So far I have identified the keywords I would like.

ok tip 1 : make sure you spend just as much, if not more time finding the related keywords you DO NOT like.. add negatives!!

tip 2 : use phrase and exact matching.. if you use just broad match you'll get lots of irrelevant traffic in most cases!

Google will tell you if your bid is too low to appear on page one inside your adgroup in the status column like : "Bid is below first page bid estimate of £0.20"

But to find out how much it costs to rank high you can set the budget to say £5 per day and then bid say £2 per click and see where that gets you displaying and click it (if no one else does) and see what you are charged, you can then play around with the bid and positions to get the information to work out what you need to bid to get where you wish to show.

[Michael_Anthony]

Harlem, that is just dreadful advice. Every "tool" in the Adwords interface only helps Google make more money, not their advertisers.

Whenever you see an offer from a PPC service offering to "optimise" something, leave it switched off - the only things these tools optimise is their own income, by increasing the amount of non relevant terms that your ads appear for, spending your budget more quickly, assuming that you'll want to appear for their broad and inaccurate definition of "related searches" etc.

Ditto anything like the Google content network, Yahoo publisher network, etc, which should also remain switched off unless you want thousands of third world wage slaves clicking your ads because that's what they are paid to do.

Like I said above, anyone who wants a real, experience based helping hand with PPC is welcome to join the school for free. And for anyone that is "dubious" about joining in case it's some kind of scam, as one recent pm to me suggested, don't bother joining. It makes no difference to me, but it might well make all the difference in the world to you.

[futureweb]

And steer clear of anyone who is only interested in self-promotion off the back of someone else's hard work too m8 :tup

[plexpert]

I'm new to this forum but I'd like to offer some advice for PPC marketing.

One of the best ways to lower your cost per click and therefore appear on the first page is to improve your quality score.

(Note, this is what I learned from my ppc experience, I only do landing/sale page PPC campaigns).

There are a few simple ways of doing this.

1. Create relevant ads where the keyword, adtext and landing page are relevant.
2. Add a privacy statement, contact and about me page.
3. Add a blog to your site and put about 7-10 posts, they don't have to be long 200-300 words is the most I ever do. Try to write your own articles if your looking for search engine traffic as well. If not you can use articles from ezine.
4. Keep an eye on your CTR, if your ad appears on the first page but no one clicks on it you will quickly drop. I've seen this alot. Write compelling ads that will want the user to click.

Hope this helped.

[vortex2000]

Have a question about keywords? I have been using just the content network on Google and choosing which sites I want my ads to appear. Was told not many people know about this method. Began using it and have been very disappointed in the results. Which is better going with just keywords or this other method I have been using?

[Shane]

content network traffic quality can suck or it can rock.. (usually sucks for most sectors) but you could try running it and monitoring it very closely and using the site exclusion option to avoid showing on sites which your data will show drive traffic but no conversions.. so rather than start off like a sniper as you currently are.. start with a shotgun but closely monitor it and quickly exclude what's not working until you find what is...

this way will cost you more in wasted traffic but allows you to test the traffic and filter it rather than just hoping you ad some sites that will work.

I'd be inclined to set the daiyl budget very low if there's lots of volume but low quality traffic.

[forex-affiliate]

Actually for you to have a better understanding, google ppc has no relation at all with your ranking on google, as each is distinct from each other

[evans11]

Actually for you to have a better understanding, google ppc has no relation at all with your ranking on google, as each is distinct from each other

Agree with you, if you use google PPC for site then you don’t have to worry about site rankings in google.

[chrisbull]

Hey,

I have only been working with PPC for a couple of months but I have already learned a LOT!

Some quick tips -

1) Limit you CPC (cost per click) and Daily spend.
2) Make sure you KWs (keywords) are targetted and not too competitive. This will maximise exposure while minimising cost.
3) Take a look at other top ranking ads in your niche to get an idea of how to write good copy.
4) Ask you AM (affiliate manager) about subid tracking. Tracking the performance of a campaign is the key to profitability

I have been putting together a blog with all my experiences and findings in it - feel free to have a look and let me know what you think?

BTW this is a great resource for free adwords tools too!

Hope this is useful for you and like I said I really would appreciate any feedback....

[hazeypops]

Hi DLINKLA

Welcome to PPC!! There is a way to ensure that you are always on page one in Adwords, it's a function called position preference. You can tell Google what position you would like to hold and it will calculate your budget accordingly and determine how many times a day you can show for you desired budget in your desired position.

PPC can be baffling when you are first starting out, I hope you find a wealth of information here on the forum, however, as somebody else pointed out, do be weary of people who have their own agenda, this forum is about sharing knowledge, not railroading somebody into a particular way of thinking.

There are some great tips in these posts -

Quality score - it really does help, follow the steps set out by PLEXPERT - great advice

Content - turn it off to begin with, try it later once you know what you are doing, it can eat through your budget with very little return in no time at all in some instances.

Tools - Google aren't trying to rip you off, do use their tools, decide for yourself whether any of them work for you. Don't assume that because you are using automatic optimisers that you couldn't be doing a better job yourself though. Also do check out affiliate.com it's got some great tools on there.

Budget - Does what it says on the tin, decide how much you want to spend on each campaign and set your budget accordingly.

Value - I like to look at PPC as getting the most out of your money, making your budget work as hard for you as it can. As a rule of thumb - I find the following to be true -

1. Don't think that position 1 is the best position - everything has it's place where it will convert at a price that works for you - you just need to find it

2. Don't adjust CPC's until you have gathered enough data on a keyword (unless it is going wild and costing a fortune) let things settle and gather data, then make an informed descision based on the evidence gathered

3. Make use of negative keywords and run search query reports often to identify search phrases that are costly but not converting

4. Make sure you understand Broad, Phrase & Exact match, what they mean and which to use when and their relationship to negative keywords.

Just realised how long this post is!!!! Better stop as I could clearly go on forever!!!!

Any questions - keep posting!!!