Im new to the PPC game. In fact, five months ago I didnt have the least idea how pay-per-click advertising really worked, let alone how to make money at it. But when you get tossed into the proverbial water and you dont want to sink, you learn to swim—and really quickly!

At the beginning of the year, our affiliate team manager asked each member of the team to take a stab at PPC. Having never done any search engine advertising, I was pretty clueless…OK, I was totally clueless. But once I decided to dig my heels in and do my best—no matter what the outcome—I learned a lot in a relatively short period of time. I just had to open my mind, experiment a lot, and take my successes and failures in stride. (And that was much easier to say than do, believe me!)

Being a writer by profession, numbers are much more of a struggle for me than words. So even though I didnt really understand the numbers involved in PPC (impressions, conversions, bidding, etc.), I decided to focus on what I did know how to do: write good copy.

To my amazement, that was half the battle, and scored our team and the company some big wins as I learned the numbers part. Funny thing is, now Im learning to strategize, and with some help from those who are good at the numbers game, I now have a much better grasp of the whole picture—and that makes my supervisor very happy!

If youre experimenting with PPC—but youre a novice like I was—allow me to share a few tips Ive learned along the way. Although I dont 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 youre good at writing, write! If youre better at numbers, hire a professional writer and take care of the numbers yourself. By working on the things youre good at, youll 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? Dont 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, youll 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 youll make.

Tip #5: Make sure your copy specificially reflects your keywords and your ads, whether youre 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: Dont be afraid to try something new. I recently found great success using one of Googles 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 Im 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 youd like to enable for position preference and click on “edit settings.” Youll find the position preference box at the bottom of the page.)

Thats it for this novice. If you have any other PPC helps or suggestions youd like to share, please pass them along. Meanwhile, Im off to check on yesterdays results.

Dont you just love those dollar signs?

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