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There are quite a few pay per click pricing models. The one that might be best for cash-strapped small business owners though is the “hourly consultation” model. Following are three reasons why.

3 Reasons Why the Hourly Consultation Works Great for Small Businesses with Limited Budgets

1. No Long-Term Commitment: This is the most obvious reason. No long-term commitments means there’s no danger of overspending. You’re not locked into a contract that you may be able to afford today, but not tomorrow.

2. Knowledge on a Dime: What we mean by this is, you may already have knowledge about pay per click marketing. But, you’re a little fuzzy about one or two areas and want to get some help to better understand them.

So, you hire a PPC marketing consultant or go to a pay per click training workshop to fill in the blanks, so to speak. This can pay huge dividends because just one or two tweaks learned at an informative seminar or pointed out by a pay per click expert can vastly improve your ROI, and lower your costs to boot.

You can literally save thousands with the right knowledge.

3. Learn and Implement as You Go: When you use this PPC pricing model, it can really help you to become a better pay per click marketer. How?

When you pay for knowledge, it’s because you really want to know something. With this level of passion, you tend to implement what you learn as quickly as possible. And, it’s in the very doing that you learn what works, what doesn’t why, what needs to be changed, what else can be tried, etc.

As these three reasons highlight, if you’re a small business owner with a limited pay per click marketing budget, it can actually be a blessing. For, it forces you to use the resources you have much more wisely – and this is a lesson that you can’t fit in a “pricing model.”

If you’ve spent any time managing a pay per click campaign, you know that it takes diligent management to ensure that you don’t overbid for keywords, maintain your rank and get the maximum ROI (return on investment). Bid management software can help you manage all of this easily, and free you up to attend to other matters in your business.

Note: Before we discuss some of the things bid management software can do for you, just a note of caution. We advise that you be as hands-on with your pay per click campaigns as possible in the early stages. This way, you’ll learn the ins and outs of this lucrative form of internet marketing quicker.

Then, when and/or if you do decide to use bid management software, you will know exactly how to make it work most effectively for you. With that being said, following are three benefits of using bid management software.

3 Benefits of Using Pay Per Click Bid Management Software

• Prevent Overbidding: Pay per click bid management software can help you keep your keyword rankings on target, without overbidding for them. It does this by regulating your bids and turning off keywords during certain hours.
• Increase Your ROI: Pay per click bid management software can increase your ROI. It does this by placing your listing in the most cost-effective position for you. You don’t have to waste time doing this manually.
• Cross Platform Functionality: Most pay per click bid management software will work across platforms, ie, Yahoo!, Google, etc. This means you don’t have to waste time navigating different search engine account interfaces.

Pay Per Click bid management software is an excellent tool to add to your internet marketing arsenal – once you understand the nuances of PPC campaign management from the ground up.

Pay Per Click marketing is known for its effectiveness in generating quick sales. And, this is a good thing. Quick sales, however, should not be the foundational goal of any online marketer. The ultimate goal is to create long-term relationships with customers. For, over time, these are the customers who will bring you the most profit.

So, how do you use Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing to cultivate lifelong customers?
Quite simply, you take the time to educate them. Sometimes, this means foregoing the quick sale and employing more multi-step marketing strategies.

The Best Way is to Educate PPC Prospects and Get Them to Buy More from You

In order to accomplish this, you must become a go-to source. You must be thought of as an authority. On your landing page, for example, you might ask prospects to sign up for an informational brochure that addresses a certain problem they have – in detail.

For example, if your client sold organic baby food, a free e-report entitled “How to Sell Organic Baby Foods to New Moms” would be a good informational brochure to distribute. In it you would address the problems inherent in selling to new moms and how to overcome them.

Of course, the solutions you offer would be ones that your company provides. Then, when it’s time for prospects to purchase the type of product/service you offer, your firm will be top of mind – all because you’ve used a pay per click strategy that “educates” instead of “sells.”

Learn more pay per click marketing strategies like this by attending the next PPC Summit.

It’s belt-tightening time for all businesses–from mom and pop shops on Main Street to skyscraping halls of Fortune 500 companies. The one area small businesses can compete with large corporations is online with pay per click marketing. But, you have to be careful not to break the budget doing it.

No matter how large or small your business is, following is one handy thing you can do to keep a tight rein on how much you’re spending – ie, recession-proof your PPC marketing efforts.

Pay Per Click Marketing: How & Why to Avoid Bidding Wars on the Information Superhighway
You know how sometimes you’re driving down the road and a car passes you. And, you speed up just a little, trying to keep pace. It happens to the best of us, even if we’re not speed demons. Well, this can happen with pay per click marketing too. After all, it is the information superhighway, and we want to keep pace with the high rollers. Sometimes, the urge to be number one or two can be so strong that we spend too much.

As discussed in the post, Pay Per Click Marketing: 3 Tips for Quicker Results, “. . . research has proven that being number one isn’t necessarily the best spot to be in. . . . Because you get a lot of curiosity seekers who’ll click on ads in this spot. An ad in the third, fourth or even the fifth spot can convert [even] better.”

One of the reasons many online marketers get into the Pay Per Click (PPC) game is to “hit the ground running,” so to speak. But like any type of marketing, PPC takes some skill, some luck and lots of testing. All of this can take – well, time.

Following are three tips to get quick results from your Pay Per Click marketing campaigns.

Don’t Auto Match: Turn off Google’s auto matching feature. You see, this feature is really for those who are new to PPC marketing, and/or who are lazy – and that’s not you, right?

If you’ve done your homework with keyword research, you will have made this unnecessary. And, you’ll probably do a much better job of driving targeted, motivated buyers to your site. After all, you’re spending your money, not Google’s, so you have much more of a vested interested in getting it right.

Appeal to a Few, Not Many: “Huh, what?” you may be thinking. The key to pay per click success is not how many surfers click on your ad, but how many qualified, interested, motivated-to-buy prospects click on your ad. So, be as specific as possible. Use negative qualifiers to weed out tire kickers and appeal only to those who want what you have to offer – now!

Forget Being #1: This is another piece of pay per click marketing advice that may seem counterintuitive. However, research has proven that being number one isn’t necessarily the best spot to be in. Why? Because you get a lot of curiosity seekers who’ll click on ads in this spot.

An ad in the third, fourth or even the fifth spot can convert better.

The only sure way to achieve success in Pay Per Click is to be in the game and monitor, test and tweak; tweak test and monitor. Good luck!

When you think of pay per click networks, you immediately think of the big fish; Google AdWords, MSN AdCenter, Yahoo Search Marketing, even AdBrite. But, don’t count out the little fish just yet.  Choosing your pay per click network wisely doesn’t necessarily mean choosing the most popular one. 

Pay Per Click Networks: 3 Factors to Consider When Choosing
When considering which pay per click network will work best for your plans, there are three very important factors to consider:

• Traffic Volume/Visibility: The number of sites where your ads will appear is important because potential customers have to see your PPC ads to visit your site. Make certain that you know where and how frequently your ad will be displayed before joining a PPC network.
• Customer Service: Most PPC networks are automated so knowing that there is help available if you need it is mandatory, especially if you are just starting out. If a network offers limited or no customer service support, this may be a red flag alerting you to the fact that you need to move on.
• Reputation: Just because a network is well known doesn’t mean that it is the absolute best one for you.  Do your research to make sure it that it meets your business goals and objectives. 

If you choose a network and it doesn’t work for you, there is nothing written in stone. You can always change. However, conducting due diligence beforehand will save you precious time and money when trying to select the right pay per click network for your business.

Sometimes internet marketing experts get so wrapped up in dispensing the latest advice on all the cool new gadgets and tricks of the trade that we forget to remind webmasters of the basics.

So because spring has sprung and most of us are having a hard time focusing, this week we’re going to remind you of a few basics about internet marketing. So here’s part information and part inspiration to get you on the road to pay per click marketing success.

 3 Things You Can Do Today to Achieve Pay Per Click Success

1. Start: Most of us put off starting until we know how to do x, y or z. Don’t! If you’ve been wanting to run a pay per click campaign, put one together and let it run. You don’t have to spend a huge amount of money (in fact we suggest that you don’t if you’re new), but do start a campaign. Sometimes, just seeing your ad pop up will get you excited about the next step, which is . . .

2. Familiarize Yourself w/ PPC Tools: You can start by reading the tutorials on Google. The keyword adword tool and the search-based tool are excellent places to start. They will show you how to get the best keywords for your campaign, as well as host of other information on how to run a successful pay per click campaign.

3. Study the Competition: This is perhaps the best thing you can do to ensure PPC success. You can severely shorten your learning curve by looking at the competition to see what’s working – and equally as important – what’s not.

It’s understandable to be a little lax this time of year. After all, the flowers are blooming and the sunshine is calling you outside. But, take your laptop, sit in your favorite café, sip your latte and get these PPC basics down pat. Then, when it’s time for you to really put the pedal to the PPC metal, you’ll go from 0 to 60 in profits in no time.
 

A successful pay per click campaign begins and ends with effective copy. After all, it’s the words that drive prospects to click, or not. To get high click thru rates however, you need more than good writing, you need effective search engine optimized (SEO) copy. Following are three SEO copywriting tips that will help to increase your pay per click campaign results.

Headlines: Some internet marketing experts say that headlines are the most important part of your PPC campaign. It’s usually the headline that gets noticed first. Your headline should always, always, always contain keywords. Add to it an effective qualifier, eg, free, discount, cheap, easy, etc., and you are well on your way to increasing your click thru rates.

Landing Page: An effective headline will get your prospect through to your real workhorse; your landing page. Your landing page should also include keyword phrases sprinkled throughout the copy.

The best places to put your keywords on your landing page are in the headings and subheadings. Other SEO copywriting tips for your landing page are to:

• Leave lots of white space on the page
• Use bullet points and numbered lists of points; and
• Use your main keyword phrase in the last paragraph of the page.

The running thread through all of these tips is that keyword placement on the page is as important as the keywords themselves.

Use Google AdWord Keyword Tool: When it comes to keywords, you shouldn’t repeat the exact same keyword phrase or you could get banned by the search engines for spamming. This is why learning to use Google’s AdWord Keyword Tool is important. It will give you alternate phrases you can use in place of your main keyword phrase.

These SEO copywriting tips should be employed in all of your pay per click campaigns; in fact, in all of your internet marketing efforts – to get maximum results.

If you’ve ever wondered what your competition was doing, you can easily find out. Knowing specifics like who is bidding on what keywords and how much they are spending can help you boost your PPC campaign results.

SpyFu: The Pay Per Click Campaign Equalizer
Spying on your competition to better your PPC campaign is possible with SpyFu.com. This neat little tool allows you to see what your competitors are paying for specific keywords. Some say this tool straddles the black hat marketing fence, but you can use it in an ethical way, ie, to garner information that can give you a competitive edge.

How SpyFu Works
By typing in a keyword or a domain name, you can quickly determine the cost per click for a specific keyword or domain name, how many people are clicking on these keywords daily and even track the keyword’s ad history.

Let’s take the term “internet marketing.”
>The average cost per click is $0.96 to $13.20.
>The average clicks/day is 120-129.
>The cost per day is $97.33 – $1.71k.

If you move further down on the page, you can see that Google dominates this keyword with a daily ad budget of $45.43k – $112.81k. If you are just starting a pay per click campaign you can see that this would cost you a significant amount of money to compete with Google, so you can search for other keywords that fit your budget.

Using this PPC marketing tool can help you plan which keywords are out of your price range before you even set up your campaign, saving you the trouble of testing and tweaking keywords you can’t afford.

Now that’s internet marketing done smart!

It seems that everyone has their own method or tactics to get ranked higher in the search engines or to promote their products. But, the truth is, it all comes down to common sense. Pay Per Click advertisers — especially those new to the game — are prone to making mistakes that not only waste time, but a significant amount of money. 

Following are a few common mistakes many make when running Pay Per Click programs. Are you guilty of any of these? 

Using Untargeted Keywords

Avoid the keyword craze when setting up your campaign.  It’s not the quantity of keywords you choose, but the quality of them.  It is important that you use keywords specifically related to your niche, so that you attract targeted traffic.  More means less when it comes to untargeted keywords – as in – less money you can make.

Not Adding Keywords

When creating copy, it is critical that you include keywords in your title and within the body of your copy.  You want your ads to be direct and to the point, so your visitors will know exactly what they are getting without all the fluff. Remember, web surfers are primarily looking for information. Give it to them.

Directing Visitors to Your Homepage

Many online businesses don’t give a second thought to directing visitors to their home page.  If a visitor has read about an incredible product and they want to purchase it, direct them to that page on your site – not the generic home page. They may not take the time to try to locate the info for themselves.  

A few minor changes can go a long way to converting clicks – which is the goal of every pay per click campaign. Avoid these common mistakes to increase your profit potential.

Did you know the PPC Summit search engine marketing experts are coming to New York on May 13-14? Learn more here www.ppcsummit.com