5 Creative Ways to Avoid Mistakes with Paid Search

The key to paid search is relevance. Try to match what your website is offering to the needs of the searcher at the exact moment they ask for it. However, once a searcher clicks on your site, you will most likely have one chance to impress that visitor. Your website has to represent your business, and your paid search has to represent your website. If you think the success of your online marketing effort relies solely on the paid search campaigns, then paid search can and will compromise your online marketing initiatives.

Paid search sponsored ads are textual advertisements that appear above or to the right of search engine results. Advertisers bid on a cost per click (CPC) model, which can range from $.10 to $100 depending on how competitive your keywords are. The ads consist of a limited number of characters, so you must be crafty in writing them. To set up an account you only need to have a credit card and then you can literally appear on the first page of Google, Yahoo, and so on, within a day or less.

Before you start paying for traffic to come to your site, consider the following: If there are many advertisers selling the same product or service, what would set you apart from your competition? Why should someone buy a product from you as opposed to your competitor? Think of how you compare with respect to these qualities - price, return policy, customer service, and shipping charges. If you are a service provider, again, what differentiates you from your competition? Think about testimonials, trial periods, and pricing. For all types of businesses, is your site easy to navigate? Is it clear what action you want your visitors to take? Are the steps involved in this action clearly identified? These considerations will enable you to create strong copy for your paid search ads that will encourage searchers to click. You can and should prevent unqualified visitors from entering your site by creating ad copy that pre-qualifies them. For example, if your services start at $5,000 per month, then say so in your ad so that people looking for services that start at around $500 a month will look elsewhere. This way, you don’t pay for clicks that will never result in customers.

Optimized paid search campaigns drive relevant traffic to websites by using ad text relevant to the search query. If your website doesn’t offer what the ad leads the reader to believe it will, then that person is most likely to leave without converting. A conversion is the completion of a desired event, such as when a visitor downloads a form or places an order. You might end up paying for a search that doesn’t convert visitors to customers and the visitors will most likely never visit your site again.

Keep in mind that not all offline businesses can translate successfully to the online world. Online marketing can drive a larger share of the existing audience to your site, but if the interest in your type of business is not there, paid search alone will not be successful.

One more thing to consider is whether or not your chosen keywords have excessive search volume. The keywords might be so competitive and expensive that your profit margin just won’t support the cost to bid on them. Every advertiser must consider their own unique business model and make advertising decisions based upon individual circumstances. For example, if you only make $10 profit on the sale of your product or service then it would not make sense to bid $20 per click. Test everything and then only promote products and services that are profitable. While the Internet levels the playing field so that all businesses, big and small, can compete in the same arena, the strategies need to be tailored to what works for you. Keep in mind the following tips to ensure that your paid search campaign is truly enhancing your online marketing.

Creative Tip #1: Before you start the paid search campaign, optimize your website for organic search listings as well as for paid search listings and check your website for usability. Being listed based on both paid and organic search results increases your visibility and ability to convert users. Do not start the paid search campaign until the website has been optimized and checked for usability.

Creative Tip #2: In order to generate additional buzz on the Internet, start an online viral campaign through social media (Blogs, YouTube, etc.). Participating in social media can increase the amount of traffic your site gets through search engines. Utilize Google’s offline products such as Google Audio, Google Print, and Google Television. By promoting your website through all of these mediums, you will ultimately increase search volume.

Creative Tip #3: It may seem that your broad search terms are not generating a lot of conversions or at least profitable conversions. Depending on your tracking software, you may be able to assign an “assist” value to the first keyword that started the keyword search resulting in a conversion. For example, a web surfer may click on a paid search ad for “high definition televisions” and then do a second search for a model such as “Samsung PN50A650”; it’s that second click that would “assist” the first keyword search. Broad searches may lead to bookmarked conversions, which is when a visitor bookmarks your site and then returns via the bookmark and converts, or a visitor finds your site through a search engine and then returns later and enters your URL directly. It may also lead to a phone call.