Monday, January 26, 2009

The Pitfalls Of Pay Per Click Advertising

By Brian Basch

The red-hot trend in Internet marketing, Google Adwords has made a big impression on pay per click advertising. The lure of placing an ad and sitting back while the search engine works for you is irresistible to a large number of advertisers.

At first sight the partnership of search engine and advertiser looks ideal. The advertiser will generate an ad and rely on the search engine to do the rest of the work. The search engine in turn will get leads for the advertiser through keywords. When a person types in a keyword into the search bar, the advertiser's ad will be seen when search results come up.

But do not be fooled! Pay per click is not quite that easy. This is because a certain amount of keyword research needs to be done. You cannot get away with plain tracking of the ad. Many popular keywords bring up a vast array of pages in one search result. On average the searchers will not look through more than the first 5-10 pages. This means Your ad must be shown in the first 5-10 pages range.

The only trouble with this is the fact that you will need to bid high to get a good position. Old fashioned ways of advertising were governed by paying for the duration of the ad as opposed to paying for exposure. This method of advertising often cost quite a bit.

The next form of advertising to emerge was Pay per click marketing. The idea was straightforward; advertisers would simply pay a fee every time a visitor clicked on their ad. This meant that if the ad had a good ratio of clicks the advertiser would make more money. Next came the question of positioning your ad in the search engines. In order to gain a superior position advertisers would have to bid higher than their competitors.

You need to exercise caution when using pay per click advertising. The reason for this is the fact that costs can rise quite fast and take you by surprise. Ads in top positions will generate a great deal of traffic but also a lot of wasted leads. This can drain your budget.

Pay per click advertising is full of pitfalls, especially for the new marketer. It is not the smooth ride that the ads proclaim. The good news is that there are many other resources to help you and other methods of marketing for those who want to look.

So consider your options and do not rely on one method of marketing. Remember the more methods you use the better chances you have of making a profitable business. - 16492

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