Common PPC Mistakes That Can Get You Burned

In the bid to put their businesses right in front of their targeted audience using Pay-Per-Click advertising, businesses especially startups and small businesses fail to heed the guiding rules of PPC advertising.
In the end, they'd burn up their budget, and without clue wonder where they missed it. Done rightly, PPC can yield outstanding ROI - on the other hand, it can wreck you faster than a man drowning in quicksand, and you may end up hating it forever. To guard against this, follow these basic rules:
1. Writing ad copy that don't converts From a PPC perspective, an ad copy consists of a headline and a description.

On Google search page, for instance, the headline is the text that appear in blue, while the description is the small block of text that follows. Unless you a copywriter with solid years of experience converting sales copy, you will sure struggle with crafting and engaging ad copy - don't lose heart, it's all part of the game.

When writing an ad copy:

• Use personal pronouns like "you" generously

• Less of you and more of them - telling visitors how you are the best in something is self-sabotaging

• Hit their pain point. Someone who enters "acne" in the search box is most probably looking for relieve - convince them you can help

• End with a CTA (call to action): "visit", "find out" etc. are good examples

2. Not specifying negative keywords

Negative keywords are keywords you don't want your ads to appear for. Let's say you sold shoes in, say Orleans, and one of the keywords you chose is "shoe for sale in Orleans". Should a searcher query Google, for instance, with the keyword "kids shoe for sale in Orleans", your ad would pop right up, burning your budget further. Since you don't sell kiddies shoes, set "kid" or "kiddies" as negative keyword.

Getting the idea?

3. Using the wrong type of keywords

People who search with search engines do so for two reasons: to find helpful information and to find the right product to buy. To that end, keywords are of two types; informational and commercial keywords. "how to repair a broken hammer" is a good example of informational keyword. "Best web host" on the other hand is an example of commercial keywords.

Unless you want to drive traffic to your website for the sole sake of it, informational keyword is perfectly fine. Otherwise, do the needful.

4. Not eliminating non-performing keywords

Even experienced marketers more often than not load their campaigns with non-performing keywords. These are keywords that bring in traffic, though, but the wrong type of traffic, or are just not performing at all. If efficiency means a thing to you, cut out this keywords.

5. Not specifying keyword matches

Not all searchers will use the exact words you defined as keywords when searching for your product and services. To avoid losing this potential customers, Google AdWords, for instance, uses keyword matching to capture this leads.

It is important you rightly specify the right keyword matches.