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PPC Success in Five Steps
By Scott Van Achte (c) 2007

There are a number factors involved in having a successful PPC
campaign. These include everything from keyword selection, bid
management, and campaign setup to your destination website. This
article will discuss five of the most important areas: Keywords,
Ad Copy, Destination URL's, Organization, and Analysis.

1. Keywords
Having a successful PPC campaign starts off with keywords. While
your keyword list will likely change and evolve over time, it is
important to start with something that makes sense.

Base Keywords
First you will want to start off with your base keywords. These
are any words you feel are relevant to your site. You may not
end up using all of these in your PPC campaign but they will act
as a stepping stone to finding other related phrases. Let's say
you own a camera shop. A few relevant keywords may include
"digital camera" or "digital SLR".

Modifiers
Use your base keywords and expand them with modifiers. Using the
base examples above, you may want to use the camera resolution,
or certain features as modifiers. You may even want to use words
such as "discount" or "waterproof". This could expand your
phrases to "waterproof digital camera" or "discount digital
SLR".

Product brand names and model numbers are also valuable for paid
search. Don't forget to target your important brands, such as
"Canon digital cameras" or "Nikon D200 digital camera".

Also don't forget about your location. If you offer sales from a
traditional brick and mortar store, or if your geographic
location is important for your visitors be sure to include
keyword targets with variations of your location like "Seattle
digital cameras", or "Canon digital camera Seattle", etc. You
may also want to use other surrounding areas. As in the Seattle
example, Everett, Tacoma and Bellingham may be appropriate.

Do not rule out long tailed search phrases. These are the
phrases that contain multiple words and are often seldom
searched. In many industries long tailed phrases are those that
will offer you a relatively low cost per click and a very
targeted visitor. "Canon digital rebel XTi" or "Canon digital
rebel XTi Seattle" may be appropriate long tailed phrases for a
camera shop. While these phrases will not likely draw a lot of
traffic, if you send searchers using this phrase to a page about
this camera, the likelihood of a conversion will go up
considerably.

Negatives
Don't forget about negative keywords, of which "free" is
probably the most common negative keyword used. Using the camera
shop example, you may also want to use brand names for cameras
that you do not carry. If you don't sell Casio, or Sony, using
these as negative phrases will help cut some unqualified
traffic. The same goes for pricing. If your products are more
expensive than most, you may want to use "discount", "cheap", &
"affordable" as negative words as well.

Eliminating
Before your ads go live, stand back and take a look at all the
keywords you have come up with. Go through them and eliminate
any that are too general or simply not focused enough. If you
are selling cameras, the single word "camera" is essential to
include as part of your longer phrases, however, as a stand
alone phrase likely will not make much sense as it will be more
expensive, less targeted, and as a result, less likely to
convert. Remove any phrases that are simply too broad, or will
not offer the right level of relevance.

More information can be found in the article Keyword Research
for PPC (http://news.stepforth.com/blog/2007/09/keyword-research-for-ppc.php).

2. Ad text
When it comes to ad text you not only want your ad to stand out,
but you also want it to be highly relevant to the keywords and
the destination page. Start by taking a look at some of the paid
ads for keywords within your ad group and see what people are
saying to draw the attention of shoppers. You may want to use
phrases like "Cheap" or "Discount" in your ad text, but if you
do this you better be sure that your products fit the bill. If
the customer sees "discount" and your prices are too high, they
will likely walk (or click) away.

Ensure that your target phrases are located within the ad title,
description, or both wherever possible. Not only should your ad
stand out, but you really want the searcher to see the direct
relevance with what they have searched for. If your search
phrase is "Canon Digital Cameras" and your ad doesn't mention
Canon at all, you will lose some searchers.

Also be sure to create multiple ad variations and run them
against each other. If you see one is converting at a much
higher rate, then create a new variation of that successful ad
while pausing those that perform at a lower rate. This will help
you focus in on what is working and improve your conversion
rates.

Now that the major PPC platforms are using quality scores to
rank ads and assign minimum bids you also want to ensure that
your ad copy is highly relevant to the copy found on the
destination page. This has always been important in terms of
visitor retention and sales, but now that it plays a role in
your cost per click, it is more important than ever.

3. Landing pages
This is really your first chance to sell the user. While you can
hook them in and grab their attention with the ads, your landing
page better sell your product or service or your chance of
conversion will drop drastically. You want the visitor to be
sold at this page; having them click all over the site will only
increase the chances of having that back button clicked.

This is the page that you want to secure the sale. Ensure that
this page is highly relevant to the ad and keyword selection (or
on the flip side, ensure that your ad and keywords are highly
relevant to this page).

Where it makes sense to do so you may also want to direct
individual keywords to specific destination pages using the same
set of ads, but remember though, make sure everything flows
well. One example of where you may want to do this is if your ad
mentions both Canon and Nikon digital cameras. Keywords
including "Canon" should be directed at a Canon page, and those
including "Nikon" should be directed at a Nikon page.

4. Organization
The organization of your PPC campaign is really dependant on
your requirements as an advertiser. In most cases you will be
able to get away with a single campaign broken down into
multiple ad groups. Each ad group will focus on a set of similar
key phrases and ads.

Using the camera shop example, you may have ad groups broken
into brand names (Canon, Nikon, Sony), camera types (digital,
digital SLR, 35mm), or a combination of, (Canon digital, Canon
digital SLR, Canon 35mm).

By having your campaigns and ad groups properly organized you
can save yourself time and headaches when it comes to ensuring
that your ad and keyword combinations are relevant and
optimized.

Breaking your account into multiple campaigns can also be very
useful. Let's say you only want to spend a maximum of $10 a day
promoting Canon, but have $20 a day budgeted for Nikon ads. In
this case you would want your campaigns broken into brand, then
each brand ad group could be broken into features, camera types,
or whatever is appropriate for your needs.

Another prime example for multiple campaigns is geo-targeting.
If you have ads relating to Seattle and some for Miami and you
want the ads to appear locally only, then you can set up a
campaign for each and assign the ad serving to the respective
city.

There are many different scenarios to apply to account setup,
but ensure that whatever direction you take it will allow for
easy maintenance. One of the biggest mistakes you can make as an
advertiser is dumping all your keywords into a single ad group,
and serving up a single ad for all phrases. This lower relevance
would result in higher cost per click rates, and lower click
through and conversion rates.

5. Analysis
Be sure to check the conversion and click through rates of not
only your ads, but your individual keywords. If you find that
some keywords are simply not bringing you any sales, you may want
to consider pausing them, or making changes to improve their
chances. This may involve setting up a new ad group and creating
new ads more focused on the individual keyword, or it may be as
simple as just adjusting the bid.

Conclusion – Keep it Relevant
If you take one thing away from this article it should be 'keep
it relevant'. Keeping everything highly relevant is the key to
success. Not only will relevance result in lower cost per click
rates, it will drastically increase the chances of a conversion
and provide you with a higher return on investment. Ensuring
that your keywords, ads, and destination pages flow seamlessly
together will provide you with the best chance for success.
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Scott Van Achte is the Senior SEO at StepForth Search Engine
Placement (http://www.stepforth.com). Several years ago after
graduating from Camoson College with a Diploma in Computer
Systems Technology, Scott joined the team at StepForth and began
his SEO career. When he is not busy with work he can be found
out at the golf course, fishing, or simply spending quality time
with his wife Lyndsay.

Scott can be reached at mailto:scott@stepforth.com
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