Pay per click: PPC tips from expert Shanee Kirk

Pay per click drives me crazy. I love the concept and sales power of it, but I am simply not wired to manage such campaigns.

On the surface, it seems an easy enough concept. Post a paid advertisement alongside a search result (or some variation of that). A reader sees the ad copy, likes the idea, clicks the ad and is delivered to your site. And then they buy, right??

If only it were that easy…

There are many experts in the online community talking about pay-per-click, search engine optimization, and other techniques to help you drive new sales to your website and business. And you can even believe some of them. Some say you can do it yourself and you likely can, but here’s what I think – let the professionals do it.

I decided to tap one of those professionals, Shanee Kirk, about pay-per-click and a bit about what she does in helping clients manage PPC campaigns.   

First, I asked her what she recommends for the do-it-yourself person who just has to try running their own PPC campaign and she pointed to that little known company, Google, and its Adwords Certification program, which I think is open to just about everyone. Great resource.

Second, what’s the biggest thing to keep in mind when you get into PPC?  Shanee replied with, “You can’t do ppc without being a statistics junkie… I’ve seen many clients disappointed because they hire someone to ‘set up’ the campaign, but they forget the important piece of the puzzle – campaign management.”

PPC campaign management involves scrutinizes the keywords, watching the traffic and conversions, and testing, testing, and improving campaigns over time. Shanee recommends the advanced reporting options within Google Analytics (which comes with your PPC account) so that you can drill down and see what’s converting.

Conversion is often about finding the right keywords to buy, but also to weave them into your content so that the ad copy drives someone to a landing page on the same topic as the ad. Finding those keywords is an art in itself, but over the last year or so of knowing Shanee she has counseled me to avoid going only for the least expensive (read: cheap) keywords – the ones that sell for 5 pennies.

I saw these cheap keywords as evidence of the Long Tail concept at work. I viewed it as I could buy lots and lots of underused, little known, keyword phrases (again: cheap) and if only a few people ever click them, they are more likely to purchase because I’ve hit the exact phrase (or problem) that they want an answer for.

If only it were that easy.

Shanee counseled me to do a combination (I think she was being nice to me and not calling me a blockhead) of “cheap” keywords and more expensive, competitive keywords. There are many reasons for this, but her point 12 months ago was this, and I’m paraphrasing from memory, “you want to be where the action is, TJ McCue. You don’t want to sit around waiting for a long tail keyword to get clicked – you want lots of clicks, lots of traffic and you have to get used to paying for it…”

I’ve heeded her counsel and found it accurate. Which is why, when I have the money for more expensive keywords, I’ll call Shanee Kirk.

http://shaneekirkmarketing.com/index.php