One of the biggest problems for new internet marketers is learning how to advertise their products, affiliate products, or websites without spending a small fortune in PPC ads. Luckily, there are several fantastic ways to go about this, some of which can help you to lower the costs of your PPC campaigns while others require no investment at all. Let’s take a look at some of these methods for lowering the amount of investment you need to make when marketing products or services.
First, there are a few great methods for reducing the costs of your PPC ad campaigns. Poorly constructed campaigns can drain your money faster than almost any other form of online marketing, and if you are a beginner, chances are you are making some crucial mistakes that are costing you big time!
Keyword-targeted campaigns are the most commonly used campaigns, so keywords are either your best friends or your worst enemies. Many sources of internet marketing “knowledge” seem to state that giant lists of general keywords are the best route for pulling traffic. While this does pull lots of traffic, short, general keywords are more often than not the downfall of an otherwise good campaign. Lots of traffic equates into lots of per-click costs. General keywords, however, do not generally bring converting traffic. The thing to remember about traffic is this – one highly-targeted potential buyer is worth thousands of non-targeted non-buyers.
Trim your keywords and remove general, slightly-related terms that are only meant to pull more people in. These keywords, in almost every case, will not convert. They will also cost you quite a bit more per click. Go for the long-tail keywords and the highly-targeted keywords. Allow me to explain.
Long tail keywords are keywords that consist of four or more words. Let’s say you’re selling a product to teach people to make money online. “Make money online”, “make money”, “earn money”, and similar search terms are some of the most awful keywords you could possibly use, as these are some of the most over-used and therefore over-priced keywords possible! Use some keyword programs and sites to get some long-tail keywords however, and you may end up with a list with keywords such as “earn more money online today”, “make money as an internet marketer”, “how do I make more money online”, etc. These terms are going to pull less traffic, but if you put together a good number of long-tails, you will still pull a substantial number of hits. The great part is that long-tail keywords are going to cost you substantially less than the general keywords, and therefore you get twice the traffic for half the price.
Highly-Targeted keywords are keywords such as “Buy product”, “Purchase product”, and “Order product”. These terms are very specific, and will bring in those searchers who are ready to purchase a product right now. This is some of the best traffic your site will see!
Site-Targeted campaigns in Google are an often overlooked but highly profitable way of running a campaign. Find the sites at the top of an organic search for your keywords, put them into your site-targeted campaign, and watch those sites’ traffic filter into yours for a fraction of the cost of PPC.
Finally, one of the most effective marketing methods is also free! Article marketing has proven to be one of the best ways to drive quality traffic to your site. The best part about article marketing, aside from being free, is that your articles can bring traffic for months or even years! This is a cumulative effort – the more articles you write and put out there, the more traffic will continue coming to your site. It’s brilliant, it’s easy, and it’s free – give it a shot!
