What is PPC?
PPC stands for Pay Per Click.
It’s a form of internet marketing where you create an ad for your product/service, and then, every time someone clicks on it, you pay a predefined fee.
Basically, rather than earning your traffic through organic methods, you’re paying for people to visit your website.
The most common format of PPC is the one you see in your search results. These Google AdWords adverts are found at the top of your returned search results.
As you can imagine, competition for keywords is hot and if you’re not careful your ad spend could get out of hand. That’s why it’s essential you make sure your adverts are as effective as possible. The idea is to make yours irresistible.
To help you out, here are my top seven tips for creating compelling PPC ads.
- Understand your audience
Your product/service targets to a specific type of person. Your ad must be written directly for them, addressing the issue(s) your product/service will solve. If you try and write something that pleases everyone, you’ll end up with a wishy-washy statement that’s no good to man nor beast.
Keep focused on your audiences’ needs and made sure you show them how you’re going to make their lives easier.
- Think keywords
PPC marketing is highly targeted, so you need to be sure a) you’re using the right keywords, and b) those keywords are included in the heading and body of your ad.
The whole point of this is to highlight your ad’s relevance to the searcher and reassure them that you’re offering what they’re searching for.
- Don’t be a keyword stuffer
You have to stand out. You have to use your keywords. Therefore you might be tempted to cram all your keywords into your heading. If you do, you’ll have an ugly and meaningless advert that no one will click on.
Make sure your heading is benefits driven, offer a hook, and contain your keyword. That’s quite a tall order considering you only have 25 characters to play with, so you’ll have to get creative.
- Be focused
Your product/service probably offers several benefits of varying importance. In your PPC ad, you only have 25 characters for your heading and 35 for your description, so you don’t have a lot to play with.
Your message has to be concise without any erroneous words. Be clear, be precise, and above all be focused.
- Call to action
Yes, even your PPC ad needs a call to action. Whether it’s your phone number, a link to your site or sign up form, it will add value and help you measure its effectiveness.
- Proofread
Please, please, please make sure you carefully read your ad through before publishing. If necessary, get a second pair of eyes to check it over, not only for spelling but also effectiveness.
- Test
Just like with all your other marketing, a PPC isn’t a one-off thing. The only way you’ll be able to judge how well it’s performing is by testing. Tweaking the headline, content and call to action will help you refine your ad until you find the perfect recipe.
An infographic you might find useful
This whole post is dedicated to the writing of your PPC ad, but what about the cost of them? How does Google work out how much each click is going to cost you?
I found this handy infographic on WordStream.com that looks at how the AdWords auction works.
Source: wordstream.com