Search engines such as Yahoo Small Business, Google Adwords, Yahoo Search and Miva offer top positions among the sponsored listings for particular keywords/key phrases that you choose. The idea for bidding is that you have to buy/bid on keywords/phrases relevant to your business. The highest bidder gets to be on the top of the search result listing and the second highest bidder, of course, gets the next top listing and so on. Every time a visitor clicks on your website advertisement, you will have to pay the same amount that you bid on that particular keyword.
PPC can be very costly, time consuming and sometimes not worthy. But if you know how to go about the step-by-step procedures, PPC is a welcome change to traditional advertising.
If you do your searches for products, articles and auctions on the net, you usually type in a keyword or a set of phrases to guide you in your search. Either you use Google or Yahoo Search depending on where you are most comfortable and where you usually get the best results. As soon as you hit the search button, almost immediately a long list of results for your keywords or phrases will be displayed containing the keywords you keyed in. The first or the top link that you see is most likely the one who bids the highest for that keyword you type. In this way, businesses will produce the desired results; they get to be advertised, at the same time, saving and spending only for the clicks they need that might translate to potential sales.
The way to start PPC bid management is to identify first the maximum cost per click (CPC) you are willing to pay for a given keyword or phrase. CPC varies over time and from search engine to search engine as well. Maximum CPC can be measured by averaging the current costs of bids (bids range from £0.25 to £5). The average of these bids is used as the maximum CPC to begin with. As your advert campaign progresses, the actual conversion rate (visitors turning to potential buyers/sales) will be determined and you may have to adjust your CPC (bidding rate) accordingly.
When you start to bid, see to it that you adopt different bidding strategies for various search engines. Search engines have their own PPC systems that require different approaches. It is also worthy to identify different bids for the same keyword phrases in various search engines.
Another thing, it is wiser not to bid for the top spot for two reasons: 1) It is very expensive and impractical, and 2) Surfers usually try different search queries in various search engines before they settle on the right one that fits to what they are looking for. This hardly results to conversion. Try to bid for the fifth spot instead and work your way up.
If you are now going steady on your PPC biddings, it is time for you to develop your own bidding strategy accordingly. It is important for you to track down which sites bring the bulk of your traffic and identify the ranking of your paid ads. This will help your bidding strategy to be effective and you should also decide where you want your ad to be positioned. Usually your maximum CPC will limit your choices.
Bid gaps (e.g. £ 0.40, 0.39, bid gap, 0.20, 0.19, 0.18) occur when there is a significant price increase to move up one spot in the PPC rankings. It is best if you take advantage of the bid gaps by filling them in so you can save your money for other bidding opportunities. Often there are keywords worthy of lesser bids to get the appropriate ranking on the list and produce a good number of clicks and higher conversion rate rather than bidding higher but having a poor conversion rate. You have to bear in mind that overbidding too is not good but rather the best position for the most effective bid.
Using pay-per-click bid management in promoting your web site will only be successful if you take time to build your listing across many engines and studying the performance of every listing. In this way, you can make the most value from what you spend in the bidding process. The key is to use the necessary precautions to stay ahead of the competition.
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