Paid Search-Engine Advertising

This mainly concerns Google Adwords. This is Googles paid advertising system, where you can bid on keywords and your ad will show in the right-hand menu.

Many people have a lot of success using this system. As long as you can account for every penny spent along the way! You must work out, for example, how many ads you will get shown for x amount of dollars, how many of those ads will get clicked on, and how many of those go on to purchase your product.

These figures are very important, for without them you will end up throwing money down the drain. Luckily, Adwords is the best place to get instant results, and to try out new ideas.

It works by you building up a list of keywords and entering how much you are willing to bid on each keyword. If you bid the most, your ad is shown first. Otherwise it will appear in a lower position or even on the second page. It depends on your competition for those keywords.

Once you have your keywords - you can start by using the same ones you use for SEO (step 2) you need to see how many people actually search using that term. If, for example, there are 4,000 searches a month for "Fly Fishing" it may be worth you bidding on that keyword. But if it is going to cost you $2 per click, perhaps you'd think twice.

This kind of mathematical balancing is prevalent in making a success of Adwords. To get back to our example, what if 50% of those people who cost you $2 a click go on to make you $50 down the road? Is it worth the cost, then?

Sometimes, you will get lucky. You'll find a niche with very little competition, and therefore a low cost per click. You can easily make a success this way as long as your website goes on to convert that visitor to a buyer. And even if they don't buy, you are just aiming to get a subscriber, perhaps your lifetime value of a subscriber is going to be $50+. Worth thinking about!