PAY PER CLICK AUTOMATIC BID MANAGEMENT CONSOLE
Ever wondered how your PPC competitors always seem to quickly change their bids soon after you have done so? And how come they are not spending all their time adjusting their bids like you are?

It's a safe bet that they do it using automated software. While you are wasting your time logging in and manually changing your bids, they set their software running and spend their time more productively. Their time is spent more efficiently, and their bidding is always adjusted for the most cost-effective values.

BidRank is a sophisticated software package that allows you to run a PPC campaign according to rules that you set within the application. It's efficient and runs on its own 24/7/365. BidRank Plus now supports Google AdWords, Yahoo! SM (formerly Overture), MIVA, LookSmart, Enhance Interactive, BrainFox, Kanoodle, SearchFeed, Xuppa, 411web, Turbo10, Mirago, 7Search, Mamma & QuePasa!.

Run multiple accounts simultaneously and you can even adjust your campaign for different bids at different times of the day. Now YOU can get on with some "proper" work and let the software take the strain for you.

The Basic Principle of PPC Marketing
There are several search engines that will rank your web site according to how much you are prepared to pay them. A Pay Per Click basis is one where you pay a set amount of money every time someone searches for your chosen keywords or keyphrases on which you are bidding, and then clicks on your link to visit your site. The higher your bid, the higher your site is placed. If people don't click on your link then you don't pay. It's a great way of guaranteeing that you are not paying for people to simply view your advert. You only pay for actual visitors to your site. They are sure to be targetted visitors because they have searched for keywords that you have selected.

The PPC engines each have their own systems and they are prone to frequent changes over time. It is not possible to give you a detailed guide here. It is advisable to read their guides in depth. It can end up costing you rather more than you expected to pay if you do not have a good grasp of their systems.

The principle of PPC is the same across the various operators of these types of marketing i.e. that the more you are willing to pay for a given phrase, and the more you are prepared to spend per day, the more often your keywords will appear and the higher up they will show in the listings. But, do monitor your daily spending closely and do be sure to check whether any of this is turning into actual business for you. More details of how to track the success of your advertising can be found on our Ad Tracker page.

You may change your bids frequently e.g. when you spot that one of your competitors is bidding aggressively and is out-ranking you in the listings. You can then raise your bid to regain your position above them. If you are not careful, this could develop into an auction situation where you end up bidding far more than you intended. It is also rather time-consuming to have to keep checking your PPC rankings and adjusting your bids accordingly. Fortunately, there is software available that will take the donkey work away from you. See the BidRank Automated PPC Bid Management service above.

Google Adwords
Google's system is very sophisticated such that they can display your links, not only in the right hand column of their search engine results pages, but also on other web sites that are relevant to your theme. Millions of web site owners carry Google ads on their sites and Google can analyse the theme of each page and then deliver ads that are relevant. In this way, your ads are targetted onto thousands of other web sites where you should expect to find people who are interested in your services.

Google's system takes a little getting used to so studying their Help sections is vital.

Google also has some good refinements on offer e.g. the ability to target your ads to within a given distance of a geographical point e.g. your base address. In this way, if you only offer services within, say, 30 miles of your base then your ads will only be shown to people searching within that zone (this is achieved by Google being able to determine the geo-location of the person who is doing the searching).

MIVA
MIVA is a less expensive option to Yahoo or Google and is good, for example, if you wish to target the UK. It is a good beginner's option into the world of PPC and, although it does not have the traffic levels of the main players, it is a worthwhile way of learning the PPC system.

Click this link for MIVA -

Yahoo Search Marketing
Ever wondered about those ads that appear above the normal listings on Yahoo? They come from Yahoo Search Marketing. This is a quick way to get to the top of Yahoo. But, Yahoo SM can be very expensive in terms of bid prices for popular keywords. Some site owners will pay high sums to be at the top and one often wonders how much money they have to throw around. Remember that your payment is "per click", and does not guarantee that your site visitor will buy anything from you.

When we are asked to run PPC campaigns for clients of ours who are in highly competitive sectors, we prefer to concentrate on the less popular, but cheaper, phrases associated with their businesses and we leave the site owners who have huge budgets to outbid each other on the more obvious phrases. The less popular phrases, despite not being searched for as often, can usually be guaranteed to bring in some enquiries and at more affordable levels.

Yahoo SM can be found here - Yahoo SM.

Bidvertiser
Here's a PPC service that we discovered that gives you your first $20 in clicks for free. You can sign up and stop your campaign before the $20 runs out if you find that the clicks they send you are not turning into business.

Let Us Manage Your PPC Campaign For you
If you don't have the energy to run your own PPC campaign, we can offer this service to our clients. The cost depends on the amount of time needed to run your campaign for you, how many phrases you wish to use, how frequently you want your bids adjusting, etc, so it is not straightforward to tell you how much it might cost. Therefore, we ask that you complete our enquiry form below and we will try to give you an accurate quote in return.