Tuesday, January 27, 2009

The Drawbacks Of Pay Per Click Advertising

By Brian Basch

Google Adwords is all the rage in Internet marketing, and has made a grand impression on the pay per click advertising world. The idea of just creating an ad and then relaxing while the search engine does all the work is just too good an opportunity for most advertisers to pass up.

Pay per click seems like the perfect union of advertiser and search engine. It is simple to do. The advertiser creates and ad based on keywords, and will pay the search engine to do all the word. Leads will be generated, by the search engine, with these keywords, for the advertiser. The ads are seen in the search results that are relevant to the keyword that is typed in.

Of course it is not as easy as it might look at first glance. The reason for this is the challenge of doing keyword research. It is not enough to just track the ad through the search engines. Although the keywords are popular they will bring up far too many pages per search result. The average searcher will be unlikely to look at more than the first 5 pages of search results. This means that in order to make money you will need to be sure your ad is positioned within the first 5 pages.

A second thing to consider is the fact that the amount you bid per click on your keyword will be the deciding factor for how you are positioned in the search engine. With the old form of advertising you would be paying for the length of time you wanted your ad to be seen, not the mount of traffic it created. The drawback with this form of advertising was that it could cost a lot of money.

Next came pay per click advertising. It was a simple idea; advertisers were charged a small amount of money every time somebody clicked on their ad. Advertisers would earn more if they had a larger amount of clicks. The next step was to get a good position for your ad. In order to achieve this the advertiser would need to make the highest bid.

You need to exercise caution when using pay per click advertising. The reason for this is the fact that costs can rise quite fast and take you by surprise. Ads in top positions will generate a great deal of traffic but also a lot of wasted leads. This can drain your budget.

There are a lot of stumbling blocks with pay per click advertising, especially if you are new to the game. It is nothing like the easy ride the ads tell you about. However there is a ray of light in that there are many places you can go to get assistance and there are also other marketing options you can consider.

So consider your options and do not rely on one method of marketing. Remember the more methods you use the better chances you have of making a profitable business. - 16069

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