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As it is sometimes difficult or almost impossible to achieve a top position
in the search engines for certain keywords, one often ends up thinking "isn't
there an easier way to do this?". Well, of course there is, but it isn't
free.
If you don't want to hire a professional to optimize your site for you, you
can always submit your site to a PPC search engine that sells the top positions
instead of selecting them with a complex algorithm. Overture is a good example
of a PPC (pay-per-click) engine and it might be the best of the bunch.
Their system is relatively simple: You select a keyword and decide how much
you are willing to pay for each visitor that visits your site through the search
results. The more money you can cough up, the higher you will rank on the result
list. The only limitation is that your site must be at least vaguely relevant
to the keyword you want to bid on.
Making the most out of your money
The cost of the top position depends greatly upon the keyword you are bidding
for. For example, the #1 ranking for "ecommerce" at Overture currently
costs around $3 per click. At the same time, you could get the #1 position for
"certified ecommerce consultant" for a mere 5 cents per click. The
latter does not produce as much traffic as the former, but it is a whole lot
cheaper. And if you have the time and energy to bid on a bunch of these low-traffic
keywords, the combined traffic from them will add up to the level produced by
a popular keyword - but at a fraction of the cost.
There are two additional benefits in bidding for the less popular terms. One,
the traffic you will receive is targeted better and should result in a better
clicks-per-sale rate. Two, Overture has many partners that display the top three
results from Overture in their search results. It is hard to grab one of the
top three places in popular keywords and still be able to make a profit, but
with slightly less competitive keywords, you can get into the top three with
a reasonable price and thus have your site displayed on all of the Overture
partner sites as well. To find these keywords, I would recommend that you use
Overture's own tool for finding keywords.
Does this mean that you should forget the keywords that already have some people
bidding for them? Absolutely not. You should bid on every keyword relevant to
your site, but at the same time, you have to make sure that you will be making
a profit after paying for the traffic. I recommend that you start out slowly
with Overture. Investigate how much an average visitor is worth to you and then
bid accordingly; the key is not to get carried away. It is better to rank 38th,
get a few visitors each day and make a small profit than to rank 1st, get masses
of traffic and lose money! If you feel that you aren't getting enough traffic,
try to correct the situation by bidding on more keywords, not by increasing
your bids so much that you won't be able to turn a profit.
Don't pay any more than you have to
When dealing with Overture or any other PPC search engine, it is also important
to remember that other bidders are constantly changing their bids. If you can
devote the time, checking your listings once in a while and changing your bids
to suit the current situation can save you a lot of money, especially if you
are bidding for terms that get searched a lot.
For example, I often see situations where the top bid is $1.20 and the second
highest bid is $0.75. The guy that is bidding $1.20 in such a situation must
be loaded with money, since he could achieve the same ranking with a mere $0.76
per click. I know, 44 cents isn't a lot of money, but if dozens or even hundreds
of people click on the listing each day, it adds up pretty fast.
Also, remember that Overture has a minimum monthly spend of $20. If you purchase
click-throughs for less than $20 on a given month, your account will be charged
$20 for that month. Make sure that you're bidding on enough keywords to produce
at least $20 in click-throughs per month in order to avoid paying for nothing.
My experiences with Overture have been mostly positive, and other people I've
talked to seem to agree. The only negative thing about Overture is that they
have become very popular among siteowners, causing the price for a top position
in certain keywords to rise. Still, even at the current prices, they (in my
opinion) beat the hell out of banner advertising.
However, Overture isn't the only PPC search engine out there. Searchhound,
Ah-ha and FindWhat all offer similar PPC advertising programs. I have not used
them so I cannot comment on their quality, but I'll be testing them in the coming
months.
About the Author:
Lauri Harpf
http://apromotionguide.com |
