Internet Advertising for pennies a day

Buying an ad in the yellow pages isn't cheap. By the time you hire a graphic designer it is downright expensive. Sadly, many new small business owner's ad dollars don't even break even.

Internet advertising has presented a great opportunity to advertise for dollars, or even pennies, a day. Unlike one-shot print ads, your online advertisements can be tweaked daily to make you more money.

How Google makes money

It is my opinion that Google's advertising program is the best place on the internet to advertise today.

Google's program, Google AdWords, allows you to advertise for certain key phrases. This delivers extremely targeted leads to your website.

When you use Google's search engine you get two types of results -- natural and sponsored.

The "natural results" are the results Google creates with its algorithm. Getting listed here is a mix of very hard work and luck. The "sponsored links" are what advertisers purchase.

Many webmasters use "search engine optimization" in an attempt to get listed at the top of the "natural results." Some keywords are easy to get listed for here, but competitive keywords can take years of work. Worse, once you are at the top it takes just as much work to stay there.

With the sponsored results your site will show up in a matter of hours.

How to use Adwords

How can you use Google Adwords to cost-effectively promote your business? As an example, lets say you own a chicago tanning salon. Your target market will be searching "chicago tanning salons" in Google.

To be listed under the "sponsored links" for "chicago tanning salons" you need to join Google Adwords. Now, you can bid on this keyword.

You only pay when someone clicks on the advertisement -- this means people looking at your site really are interested in your product or service.

Certain keywords will cost you a lot of money per click. The top bidders for "Home Refinance" pay over $10 every time some one clicks on their ad. That is a lot of money when thousands of people are searching every single day!

Don't panic. Most locally targeted keywords have low bids. 10 to 30 cents per click is not unreasonable.

Be aware, many targetted, competative keywords are in excess of a dollar a click. To find get a rough idea of how much you will have to pay per click use the Overture Bid Tool.

Getting the most for your money

Google Adwords includes tools the help you measure your return on investment.

For example, if you sell a product on your site you can see how many people click on your ad for every sale you make.

Lets say you sell tanning lotion. You bid 40 cents a click and get 41 clicks a day. That means you spend $16.40 a day.

Assuming you have a profit margin of $20 per sale you need to get at least one sale a day. This would be a 1 : 41 conversion ratio, or a conversion rate of 2.4%

Spend less, sell more

If you want to increase your conversion from 2.4% to 5% there are several steps which you can take.

The first is to target your keywords more specifically. Instead of bidding for "tanning lotion" you could bid for "hemp tanning lotion." You will get less clicks, but it should convert better.

Make sure that you send the advertisement to a specific page on your site which is about that keyword. If you don't sell hemp tanning lotion, then don't bid on the keyword!

Better Ad Copy

Besides using more specific keywords you can also write more specific ad copy.

Here is an example of bad Google Adwords ad copy:

Here is an example of better ad copy for the same ad:

Why did I say better ad copy and not good ad copy?

I don't know exactly how this will perform. Good copywriters understand that you need to test out different copy. Write 10 different ads. Test each one out every week for 10 weeks. Use the one that gets the best results.

What I do know is there are a few tricks that will help you out.

First, use a qualifier in your ad. In this one the price is the qualifier - "Starting at $30 a bottle." This way people who are not prepared to spend $30 won't click your link.

Second, include your target keyword at least once, twice is better. This is because Google will place the keyword in bold. Your ad will be more visible which means it should get more clicks.

Here is a secret not everyone knows about :

Many advertisers assume that to get ranked #1 on the page they need to bid more. In other words, pay more $$$ for each click. This is only partially true.

The placement is determined not only by the amount spent, but by the number of clicks.

Imagine two advertisers. One pays $1 a click while the other pays 55 cents.

The 55 cent advertiser hired an expert copywriter and gets double the number of clicks as the $1 a click guy. He makes Google more money ($1.10 vs $1.) But, as a result he gets double the number of potential customers visiting his site as his competitor for nearly half the price.

Google sees he is making more money so they move him up to a higher placement. His competitor, who is mad he lost his #1 spot, decides to bid $2 a click to get his old spot back.

Perhaps this will knock you back down. Don't fret that you are #2 again. Now your competitor has doubled his ad budget. That's money he can't spend somewhere else.

Click here to have experienced copywriters help you advertise sucessfully on Google.

Better Landing Page

Google Adwords only lets you send a small message. The goal of this message is to qualify the prospect and get them to click your ad.

Clicking the ad and getting the prospect to your site is only half of the battle. Now you need to convert him or her into a customer.

In order to make sales your landing page needs to be:

• Relevant
• Easy to read (no gray text on a black background)
• Have great copy

The difference between a good landing page and a bad landing page is night and day.

A good landing page can be a profit producer while a bad landing page can be a money drainer. Which one would you prefer?

An added bonus of a good landing page is that you required bid amount will drop. Google recently implemented this to make it more expensive for advertisers to bid on keywords that are unrelated to their landing page.

Leaping Ahead of Your Competition

Combining these strategies will put you ahead of your competition.

If you are not even using Google Adwords right now then a good chunk of your target market does not even know you exist! How can someone become a customer if they do not even know you are there?

I hope the information in the article has helped you learn how you can start advertising your business on the internet today.

Good luck!