An introduction to Pay-Per-Click Search Engines

By Special Guest Writer Prabuddha S. Raychaudhuri

If you cannot get visitors to your site by regular search engine listings, there is another way. Pandia guest writer Prabuddha S. Raychaudhuri gives an introduction to the use of pay-per-click search engines in search engine marketing strategies.

What is a Pay-Per-Click Search Engine?

(January 5 2004) Until now, the Search Engine (SE) world has been basically governed by regular "free" search engines, i.e. search engines which rank various web sites for free. However, with the emergence of numerous pay-per-click (PPC) search engines, the scenario of SEO or search engine optimization has undergone a sea-change.

Paid search results have now become a majors source of revenue for all the major search engines and web portals, including Google, Yahoo!, AOL and Lycos.

The two major pay per click search result companies are Google (through its Google Adwords program) and Overture (now owned by Yahoo!). There are also a few medium sized text ad deliverers, like FindWhat, Kanoodle, Enhance, LookSmart and (in Europe) Espotting, as well as a large number of small PPC SEs.

Put in simple words, PPC SEs are those search engines which give rankings to various websites based upon the amount of money the website owner is willing to pay for a particular keyword. These search listings could therefore also be called "text ads", because that is what they are.

For example, if you are the CEO of an online tea shop, and you have bid for the keyword "online tea shop" for US$ 0.90, while your competitor has bid for the same keyword for US$0.85, then your website will be placed higher up than your competitor on the PPC SEs.

However, if your bid amount is less than your competitor, you will fall further down the list, together with your the number of people clicking on your pay-per-click text ads. You won't be charged anything if your website link goes unclicked, but you won't gain any customers, either.

Note that Google AdWords will also take the click-through rate -- i.e. the "efficiency" of the ad -- into consideration when ranking the pay-per-click search results.

You may search "pure" pay-per-click search engine sites (normally the home page of the PPC company), where most of the listings are paid results. Searchers may use these search sites for finding goods and services. The most profitable way of distributing paid results like these, however, is by including them in regular search result pages.

The paid results are normally marked as "sponsored results" or something similar.

Procedures for Bidding in PPC search engines

The trick for bidding in various pay-per-click search engines lies in extensive and thorough research of the keywords, developing good, relevant content on those keywords, astute understanding of the functioning of various PPC SEs and -- of course -- the budget allocated for SEO of your site.

PROCEDURE # 1 : Target your keywords

Since you will be paying for all those clicks, you must ensure that those clicks convert into customers. If the visitors comes to your site looking for something else, he or she will probably leave immediately. Nevertheless, you will still have to pay for the click-through.

So, target your main keywords, i.e. keywords which describe your products or service to the fullest extent.

You can conduct the keyword research yourself by using various keyword research tools available on the net or can take the service of various professional Keyword Research Consultants.

Here's a list of keyword research tips that you may find handy:

• Always target keywords that describe your products/services in an accurate manner.
• Try to find potential multiword keywords. Yes, they may giver fewer click-throughs, but the chances that the searchers will find what he or she is looking for will increase significantly, leading to higher conversion rates
• Try formulating keywords which give answers to as "why/how/what .......?"
• Utilize your server log files to find out what your customers are searching for when visiting your site.
• Use keyword generator software.
• Include common misspellings (e.g mortgages typed as morgages etc.) in your keyword list if the PPC search engine allows this (however, make sure the accompanying description of your site uses the correct spelling! You do not want to make a bad impression.)

PROCEDURE # 2: Check the price

After identifying the main keywords (i.e those keywords on which you are going to bid), visit the major PPC SEs and find the amount of money your competitors are willing to pay for those particular search queries.

Map the bid levels of the top ten positions. The PPC SEs will normally have a search facility that lets you do such research.

PROCEDURE # 3: More research

After that, what? Research, research, research!!! Fine tune your keyword list, ensure that those are your most potential keywords. Then compare the bid amount of those keywords in various PPC SEs for top ranks and find out which one really suits your budget.

Compareyourclicks.com, is a nice site which I found very handy for comparing the bid amounts of a particular keyword in the major pay-per-click search engines.

Spend also time on your text ad copy, i.e. the text the searcher reader will read when searching for your particular keyword or keyword phrase. One trick is to include the search query in the text ad itself. Ads may seem more relevant to the searcher if the ad contains the exact same keyword phrase as he or she entered into the search field.

Writing a new text ad for each search phrase will, of course, lead to much more work than using the same copy of all keyword combinations, but it is worth it.

Keep in mind that the "quality" of the visitors from the different pay-per-click search engines may vary, meaning that the number of visitors becoming paying customers (the conversion rate) will be higher for some of them.

Moreover, some of the pay-per-click search engines have a much larger reach than others. For all practical purposes it is only the major players (Google Adwords, Overture and Espotting in Europe) that get their pay-per-click text ads listed in the major search engines and portals. Overture, for instance, delivers such ads to Yahoo!, Lycos and AltaVista.

This does not mean that all of the other players are without value. Some of them deliver pay-per-click text ads to metasearch engines and smaller portals and can bring in quite a few visitors at a much lower price per click.

Pandia's search engine optimization section has a list of pay-per-click search engines and resources.

PROCEDURE # 4 : Optimize your pages

After finalizing your potential keywords, optimize the pages based on those keywords. You should do this for several reasons. First of all it is important that the visitor immediately understands that you have what he or she is looking for.

If you are going to open these pages to regular search engines, each and every one of these pages will also be delicious "search engine spider food", meaning that you may even get some high rankings in the regular search engines for free.

The serious pay-per-click search engines have editorial staffs that controls that ads are not misleading. They will check that the page actually does have relevant content corresponding to the keyword phrases you are paying for.

For this reason it is important that you read the guidelines of the pay-per-click search engines very carefully before writing your text ad copy. Both Google and Overture are know for their strict policies in this area. They want the text ads to be relevant to the searcher, as a satisfied searcher is a returning searcher.

A few general tips on page optimization:

• Develop content which are relevant to your keywords and site.
• Try to place your keywords at the beginning of the title and description.
• Title and Description should not be misleading and should reflect the content of your site
• Repeat the keywords throughout the page quite a number of times (pay attention to Keyword Density , normally between 3-9 %)
• Try to place your keywords in the very first sentence of the page. Repeat the keywords throughout the first paragraph. Same should be tried at the last paragraph of the pages.

Some SEO experts prefer to design special pages for their pay-per-click search engine efforts, and they use the robots.txt protocol to exclude regular spiders from visiting these particular pages. The reason for this is that they can write their sales copy without taking regular search engine optimization techniques into consideration.

Moreover, they can design a specific page for each and every one of their pay-per-click text ads and PPC search engines, and then use their web site statistics software to determine the effect of specific text ad campaigns.

PROCEDURE # 5: Adjust your bids

My advice for first timers would be to opt for generic keywords and go for lower bid amounts. Try to be within the first page of results, and then slowly work your way up. Track down your most potential keywords again from your visitor's stats, and then raise the bid amount to be within the top 3-5 positions.

Opt for higher bid amounts in the early phases only if you are going for very specific, highly focused keywords related to your business -- keywords which you are dead sure of producing valuable click-throughs.

Since every keyword bid in the PPC SEs will have a see-sawing effect on bid amounts over time, it's imperative for the website owners to keep a close eye on it and judiciously increase/decrease the bid amount to get maximum click-throughs. Not an easy job, but should be religiously pursued if you are interested in getting maximum mileage from PPC SEs.

PROCEDURE # 6: Focus on what is important

Don't be obsessed with getting that number 1 Position. Focus on what you are spending on a particular keyword and what your click-throughs are producing.

To give an example You are ranked fifth in XYZ PPC SE. You are spending 8 cents on a keyword and the click-throughs are producing 18 cents on average. That's not a bad deal.

However, anticipating greater potential of your keywords, you hike up your bid amount. You are now ranked second in XYZ PPC SE, and the number of visitors is increasing. You are now spending 12 cents per click. However, the click-throughs are producing say, the same 18 cents. You are still well off, but you are not earning as much per visitor.

So concentrate on trying to gauge the implications of an increase/decrease of the bid, the corresponding higher/lower ranking in PPC SEs, and the effect this has on your sales (the percentage of click-throughs converting into customers).

Based on this information, and the restraints posed by your marketing budget, you should be able to determine whether a pay-per-click search engine campaign is the right thing for you.

For a list of pay-per-click search engine tools and resource, se Pandia's PPC page.
For a general introduction to search engine optimization, see Pandia's Search Engine Marketing 101.

Prabuddha S Raychaudhuri is the Founder & CEO of SEOguru Technologies , a Search Engine Optimization and Marketing (SEO/SEM) consultancy firm, catering to clients which range from Fortune 500 to small home business start-ups. The company's services include Top 10 SE rankings, Pay Per Click (PPC) targeted traffic campaign, Paid Listing Management, Keyword Advertising. Prabuddha holds a Bachelor Of Engineering (B.E.) in Construction Engineering and can be contacted at prabuddha@searchengine-optimization-guru.com.

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