Blockbuster Basics of PPC

Keyword Selection

Several tools are available to help you choose keywords for your campaigns. These include WordTracker and Keyword Discovery, which you pay to use, and a free tool from Google. To use these tools, you simply enter a keyword or phrase that you'd like to target. The tool spits out a list of related terms and the volume of searches that each keyword has received in a 30-90 day timeframe.

Depending on your goals and your budget, you want to choose a combination of high-volume keywords and lower-volume, but more targeted, long-tail keywords. For instance, if you are in the health food industry, your high-volume keyword may be "health food" and a more targeted long-tail keyword could be "natural health food store."

Refine and target even further by including negative keywords. If you run a health food store but you don't deliver, you could add "delivery" as a negative keyword. That way, your PPC ad won't show up for searches that include that word. By spending a little more time on research and keyword selection, you can vastly improve the number of sales you make, while controlling your budget.

Refining Your Ad Copy

Now that you've spent that extra time targeting the right customers, be sure to capture their attention with compelling ad copy. Study your competitors' ads. What do they have in common? What can you do to stand out amongst them?

To increase the clicks on your ad, be sure to include your targeted keywords in the copy. A quick and easy way to do this with Google AdWords is to use their Dynamic Keyword Insertion tool. Another option is to write a custom ad for each keyword. Try using quirky or funny language in your ad, experiment with punctuation, and, most important, include a call to action ("Get all the details here!"). The key to success is always to be testing.