If you're experimenting with PPC—but you're a novice like I was—allow me to share a few tips I've learned along the way. Although I don't have all the answers by any means, maybe I can help boost the confidence of some of you out there who would like to give PPC a try. You really can do it!

Tip #1: Do some research. Check out what others are doing by typing keywords into the search engines and looking at what pops up. What kinds of headlines seem to be working for those advertisers at the top? What makes them different from those further down? If you were a consumer shopping for insurance, which ad would you click on—and why? How can you set your ads apart from your competitors, yet draw attention to them? Make notes of your findings and use them to help you write great ads.

Tip #2: Focus on your strengths (whatever they are). If you're good at writing, write! If you're better at numbers, hire a professional writer and take care of the numbers yourself. By working on the things you're good at, you'll keep your focus...and learn the rest along the way.

Tip #3: Compete on some of the smaller terms. What do I mean by that? Don't feel like you have to spend a lot of money bidding on broad terms (like "insurance" or "health insurance") that others are already bidding on. Although these words can gain you some big wins with well-targeted copy, you'll spend a lot more money bidding on them (and a lot more per click) than you would on some of the less targeted terms (like "health insurance for [fill in a profession]")—and you may just find your niche in the process!

Tip #4: Subscribe to an online marketing service like Hitwise or Wordtracker. These services do some of the research for you, providing reports and lists of the most commonly searched keywords and phrases to help you develop your own keyword lists. The more targeted your terms, the more money you'll make.

Tip #5: Make sure your copy specificially reflects your keywords and your ads, whether you're doing the writing or someone else is. For example, an ad containing the words "cheap health insurance" should point toward a page on your site about those same specific terms, and the keywords for your ad should be terms such as "cheap health insurance," "low-cost health insurance" and the like. The more specific you can be, the better (especially on Google Adwords).

Tip #6: Don't be afraid to try something new. I recently found great success using one of Google's new tools, position preference. This enables me to set my position preferences in relation to the competition, which helps me in several ways: it helps keeps my cost per click lower and my competition less intense; it seems to lessen my likelihood of click fraud because I'm not competing with the "big boys" at the very top of the pile; and it helps me find a niche amongst my competitors. (To use this feature, just check the campaign you'd like to enable for position preference and click on "edit settings." You'll find the position preference box at the bottom of the page.)

That's it for this novice. If you have any other PPC helps or suggestions you'd like to share, please pass them along. Meanwhile, I'm off to check on yesterday's results.

Don't you just love those dollar signs?