Pay per click advertising allows people to drive instant traffic to their website, which is why it is a great source of traffic for ecommerce websites. With a bit of in-depth keyword research, an ecommerce business can start driving highly targeted traffic to its website in a matter of minutes. If the right type of traffic is being brought in, those consumers will start buying products and generating revenue for that ecommerce website.
How PPC Works
Pay per click advertising is a pretty simple concept once you have a bit of experience with it. The general idea behind this online marketing method is that you create an advertisement that will appear in the search engines whenever someone searches for a keyword that you specify. When someone searches for that term, triggering your advertisement in the process, and clicks on your ad, they are taken directly to your website and your advertising account is charged a small amount of money.
Typically, the more you are willing to pay for a click from a specific keyword, the higher up the list your advertisement will appear. If you are the highest bidder among all of the people bidding on a specific keyword, your ad will be placed at the top of the “sponsored ads” section of the search results, allowing to you get the most traffic possible from your advertisement.
How to Improve Your PPC Campaign
While PPC advertising is a good way to drive instant traffic to your website, it can also be rather difficult to master right off the bat. It takes practice and patience to master the skills associated with pay per click advertising. The following are a few tips you can use to help improve your PPC campaign.
Focus on Exact Match Keywords – When specifying the keywords you want to trigger your ads, you have the option to select “exact match” or “broad match” variations of your term. The “broad match” option will trigger your ad whenever someone uses your keywords anywhere in their search term while the “exact match” option will trigger your ad whenever someone searches for you keyword and only your keyword. Using the “exact match” option allows you to target specific consumers searching exactly for specific information or a specific type of product. This can have a positive impact on your PPC campaign’s ROI because your traffic will be much more targeted.
Add Negative Keywords – Adding negative keywords is a terrific way to ensure your ads do not appear when someone is searching for something that has nothing to do with the products you are selling. For instance, if you are selling items online, you may want to add “free” to your negative keyword list to prevent anyone searching for free or discount items from clicking on your ads as they are not very likely to make an online purchase.
Test, Test and Test Some More – The only true way to improve your PPC campaign is to split test many different aspects of your campaign including your headline, ad copy and landing page copy. Testing different copy allows you to see what does and does not work with your PPC campaign, enabling you to set up your campaign to produce the best results possible.
PPC Mistakes to Avoid
Only Send People to the Home Page – One of the more common PPC mistakes companies make is only sending traffic to their home page. Since you are able to bid on very specific keywords, it is important that you take these consumers to pages of your website that provide them with the information or products they were searching for. Typically, your home page is not going to be what people were looking for and they will simply leave your website after you paid to send them there.
Using too Many Broad Match Keywords – Broad match keywords in conjunction with negative keywords can produce positive results for your PPC campaign, but it is important that you do not bid on too many broad match keywords. Limiting the number of broad match keywords will keep your traffic as targeted as possible, allowing you to increase your conversion rate.
Failing to Analyze Data – Your PPC account and website’s analytics provide you with a wealth of information pertaining to your pay per click advertising campaign. Failing to analyze this data on a consistent basis to see where you can make improvements in your campaign is a huge mistake that many companies make.
Getting traffic is often a struggle for ecommerce websites. Using PPC marketing will enable your online business to drive a substantial amount of targeted traffic to your website. By following industry best practices and avoiding some of the more common PPC mistakes, you should start to see some positive results when using this online marketing method to advertise your ecommerce website.