Schewanick Computer Services

Pay Per Click Search Engine Secrets Revealed
Search engines and directories are important in getting a steady flow of traffic to your site. However, you really have to work hard (or pay someone to work hard), to even get close to guaranteeing a top 10 position on them.
Pay-Per-Click search engines, on the other hand, offer you the enticing prospect of a guaranteed search engine position (guaranteed, that is, at time of bidding). And even better, as more traditional search engines struggle to generate income, some Pay-Per-Click results are actually used within these traditional engines.
Chances are you've done a search on some search engine such as Yahoo, MSN or AOL and seen those listings at the very top that are called Sponsor Listings or something like that. YOU can have your listing there if you do a little homework and have just $20 a month to spend on advertising your site.
Overture
Overture is by far the most popular pay-per-click search engine on the web right now. It was the first pay-per-click search engine and as such Overture search results can now be found being used on many other search engines. Also, Overture has the toughest anti-fraud measures in place - there is less chance of receiving bogus clicks using Overture.
Overture's market share is huge- they reach 80% of all web surfers – and the minimum bid for any keyword is only .05 cents. There's also a minimum spend each month (currently $20).
Other Pay Per Click Search Engines This is by no means a definitive list, but most of the important pay-per-click search engines are listed here:
http://www.hounddog.com
http://www.searchhound.com
http://www.7Search.com
http://www.Rocketlinks.com
http://www.FindWhat.com
http://www.goClick.com
http://www.Espotting.com
http://www.onesearch.com
http://www.eGuideTo.com
http://www.NetFlip.com
http://www.Ah-Ha.com
http://www.BigWhat.com
http://www.sprinks.com
The only PPC search engines I use in promoting my sites are Overture and FindWhat. For real traffic (not just a few clicks a week) I highly recommend Overture.
The Basics of Bidding
Using Overture as an example here, making a bid is simply a matter of choosing the following:
* K e y w o r d
* T i t l e
* D e s c r i p t i o n
Let's use my site, Planetceliac.com as an example. Planetceliac.com is a portal site for people afflicted with Celiac Disease. And as Overture recommends on its site, always repeat the keyword in both the title and description to improve your chances of a click.
Here's my listing for the search term (keyword) "celiac":
Celiac Information
The gluten-free place to be featuring recipes, vitamins, groceries, message boards, tips, chat and timely information.
www.planetceliac.com
Overture comes with awesome free tools to get you started brainstorming your own ad campaigns Ready?
Here's the link to the free tools: http://www.overture.com/d/USm/adcenter/tools/index.jhtml
Here's How I Do It
First Tool
First there is a Search Term Suggestion Tool, where you just type in the search term you're interested in and it will tell you how many times in the previous month that term was searched for AND other related search terms that you could bid on. This is a great brainstorming tool.
So, I did a search on "celiac" on the Search Term Suggestion Tool and here's what I got:
Searches done in November 2002
Count Search Term
15821 celiac disease
7001 celiac
2875 celiac sprue
498 celiac disease symptom
387 celiac recipe
351 celiac sprue disease
221 celiac spru
195 celiac sprue association
172 celiac diet
145 celiac symptom
123 diet for celiac disease
107 celiac disease recipe
106 celiac disease foundation
103 celiac gluten recipe
102 association canadian celiac
97 celiac spruce
84 artery celiac
82 block celiac plexus
65 celiac trunk
63 celiac disease test
62 celiac support group
61 celiac disease picture
60 celiac association
57 celiac cure
56 celiac disease in child
51 celiac child disease
45 celiac society
44 celiac food
43 celiac sprue symptom
38 canada celiac
36 celiac syndrome
35 celiac foundation
34 blood celiac test
33 celiac kid
32 celiac research
31 celiac disease system
30 celiac norwegians
28 celiac cure disease
27 celiac disorder
26 celiac sprew
25 block celiac
Second Tool
Next tool is the View Bid Tool. Now that you know your keywords, find out how much the bids are for those terms. So, I write down many of these and go to the View Bid Tool to see how much it'll cost me to capture some of this guaranteed traffic.
Here's what I got:
Your Celiac Diet
Gourmet gluten-free foods for celiac diets. One-stop shopping for baking mixes, breads, baking ingredients, cookbooks, vitamins, snack foods, cereals and more. www.glutenfree.com
(Advertiser's Max Bid: $0.50)
Celiac Information
The gluten-free place to be featuring recipes, vitamins, groceries, message boards, tips, chat and timely information. www.planetceliac.com
(Advertiser's Max Bid: $0.11)
Gluten-Free Mall
On-line special diet shopping for people on gluten-free, wheat-free and casein-free diets due to celiac disease, wheat allergy, autism, ADD, ADHD, gluten intolerance or other health reasons. www.glutenfreemall.com
(Advertiser's Max Bid: $0.10)
Gourmet Gluten Free Foods
'Cause you're special! Gluten free, Casein free, all natural gourmet bakery mixes and ingredients. We're dedicated to making the best tasting food on the market. Try us out, you deserve it! www.causeyourespecial.com
(Advertiser's Max Bid: $0.10)
Ok, you'll see that I'm currently listed at the #2 spot. So I'm in for only .11 cents a click on the keyword/search term "celiac". Cool. What's up with the #1 listing at .50? They are wasting their money. They should adjust their bid to .12 and they could stay at #1 and save moolah.
Bid carefully
Make sure you are happy with the amount of money you will spend. A quick rule-of-thumb to determine the value of a visitor (or click) is to use this simple equation for a given month:
Value = average earnings / average unique visitors
Make sure your bids are lower than this 'value' of a visitor. The best way to achieve success at the pay-per-click search engines is to bid on many listings, but bid low.
My Overture Performance Results
Here are some results for December for that "celiac" traffic. This comes straight from my listings manager at Overture.
Clicks : 167
Click Rate : 10.37%
Avg. Cost/Click : 0.06
Cost : $10.42
So, this means that at the #2 spot, I'm getting 10.37% of all the people who search for "celiac" to click on my site. And I paid a total of $10.42 for that traffic.
ROI
So, how's my return on investment? Well, on my site, I sell books about celiac disease through Amazon.com, and Seasilver liquid, whole food nutritional supplement. I can make commissions on either of these programs. This month, I have made 6 books sales and two Seasilver orders-one single bottle and one 3-pack. That means I have converted 8 visitors for a conversion rate of 4.8% (8/167).
Amazon commission: $11.87
Seasilver commission: $40
So, I spent $10.42 to make a total gross profit of $51.87. That's an average profit per conversion of $6.48.
Now, I go to the Overture ROI tool at http://www.overture.com/d/USm/adcenter/tools/index.jhtml and plug in my numbers. The Overture ROI calculator says that my Overture ROI is a whopping 418.4%. Um.I rock! Am I happy? You bet I am. And I bet you would be too with those kind of numbers.
Where Are The Millions?
Will I get rich off of these sales numbers? Probably not any time soon. But guess what? I just launched this site December 16, 2002. AND I capture email addresses with my Big Marketing Autoresponder so that I can market to my visitors every month with a great ezine and more special offers. So, lets see what could happen in a few months if I get say 2000 clicks with the same conversion rates, etc.
If I convert 4.8% of 2000 that's 96 customers with an average profit of $6.48. That's $622.08 that I spent only $120 to get. a net in my pocket profit in one month of $502.08. What are you waiting for?
Get Started
Get your own Overture advertising account now: http://www.big-marketing.com/overture.html
Remember
Pay-per-click search engines CAN guarantee top 10 search engine position, at a low cost. Just remember that the secret to using pay-per-click search engines is to make hundreds of bids. Remember also, that this time around, you only want 'the right people' to click the link! So choose your words carefully.
Get Started
In a nutshell, here's your formula for Internet success: 1. Get an Overture account.
2. Research your keywords
3. Research your bid amounts
4. Submit your listings
5. Count your profits.
It really is just that simple. Good luck and have fun. Remember, I'm always just an email away if you want more info on Overture or Big Marketing Autoresponders.
All the best,
Susan Lassiter-Lyons
Big marketing Autoresponders
Automated email marketing for $11.95 a month http://www.big-marketing.com