Way back when, pay per click (PPC) advertising was an amazing tool that enabled small business owners to get their name out into the marketplace quickly and affordably.
Well, it still is. But now it is also an amazing tool that enables small business owners to blow through their marketing budget in a heartbeat without getting many leads.
So given the extremely high level of competition for PPC ad placement and increasing bidding wars, how do you still get a great deal on targeted visitors to your site? You niche.
That’s right, you find and invest in your niche. And you dig deeply from all angles to make sure that you are avoiding your competitors who are bidding up certain keywords. How do you dig this deep niche?
Keyword Digging – Long-tail keywords are one of the most important parts of defining your niche. These longer search phrases (typically three words or more) are highly targeted. When you combine a highly targeted search with a web page that speaks directly to that need, you will have a much higher conversion rate. In addition, long tail keywords are much less competitive… and consequently much cheaper!
Quality Digging – If you have a high quality score in Google Adwords, your advertisements are given a competitive advantage in the bidding system. With a high quality score you can bid significantly less but still get top placement over competitors who have a low quality score. So improve your score by making sure that there is strong continuity between your ad text and the content on your ad landing page!
Location Digging – Compete where you are likely to win. Don’t serve your ads around the globe, or even around the country. Choose the specific locations where visitors are most likely to be interested in what you have to offer, or where you know you have a strong competitive advantage. This will increase your conversion rate and avoid paying for low quality traffic.
Time Digging – Again, the idea here is to compete where you have the best chance of winning. You may want to only display ads when you will have someone in the office who can immediately follow up with new leads. Or, you may want to avoid ads at night when people tend to be window shopping. Figure out what times of day you see the most success and eliminate ads at other times.
Track and Improve: This is the most important step. Do everything above, and then watch. See what long tail keywords work and which ones don’t. See what locations and times of day generate sales and which ones don’t. See which ads, keyword, and landing pages combinations are getting high quality scores and which ones aren’t seeing the love. Then cut the bad out entirely, and mimic the good. Then watch again, tweak some more, and then repeat again. It is a slow, detailed process – but once you have a dialed in campaign it is like your own magic genie that will make you sales whenever you want!
