Pay-Per-Click tips and techniques

1. Research your pay-per-click search terms. You don't necessarily have to bid on the most popular (and most expensive) search terms. Spend some time studying your referral logs. What search terms are users typing in to find your pages?
   
   You'll probably discover that your visitors use several variations and combinations of keywords to find any given page on your website. With most pay-per-click search engines, you can often bid the minimum on these rarely used search terms and still come out in the number one position.
   
   It's better to bid $.05 on 20 different search terms than it is to bid $3.50 on the most popular one if you end up receiving the same total number of clicks.
    
2. Bid on synonyms for your high-dollar search terms. There is one particular search term that I used to bid $.90 for. I eventually discovered that I could bid $.17 on a synonym and get the same quality of traffic for a lot less total cost.
    
3. Don't vanity bid. Unless you're selling a product that nets you $1,000s per sale and has a high conversion rate, it makes little sense to be the top bidder. You'll get a few less clicks in the third or fourth position, but you'll save a ton in pay-per-click fees!
    
4. Spread your bids around. You should have listings with the major pay-per-click search engines like Google AdWords and Overture, but some of the smaller pay-per-click sites can bring in decent traffic for as little as $.01 per click!
    
5. Review the top bids on the major pay-per-click search engines for the terms you're bidding on each and every day. Advertisers change their bids all the time. They might use up their ad budget for the month or stop bidding on a particular keyword altogether.
   
   You never know when you might be able to adjust your bid up just a couple of cents to move from #2 to #1. And often you can adjust your bid down and save a considerable amount in fees while still bringing in the traffic.
    
6. Make sure your ad accurately describes what the visitor will find when he hits the landing page. It's simply a waste of money enticing a visitor to click on your ad only to have him immediately hit the back button because the landing page didn't offer exactly what he thought it would.
    
7. Make the landing page the exact page on your site that has the offer described in the ad. Never use your home page as the landing page in a pay-per-click campaign unless the offer is actually on the home page.
    
8. Test. Adjust. Test again. Always be trying new combinations of keywords and bid amounts. Keep and refine the tactics that work and discard the ones that don't.
   
   Effective pay-per-click bidding is more art then science. What works today might fall flat tomorrow. A search term that fails miserably today might work exceedingly well in a couple of months.
   
   Keep meticulous records and cut your losses when you have to, but don't be afraid to revisit something that you have dropped in the past.