Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Writing Quality PPC Ad Copy

By Brian Basch

There are lots of different issues relating to how to make your PPC ad campaign work for you. Picking the right keywords, bidding for them, and making sure your ads are effective are all important. However, one of the things we often forget to pay attention to is the actual ad. Since this is the point of contact between your campaign and the customers you'd like to target, forgetting about it is a big mistake!

You will have a sum total of three lines worth of text to sell your site to customers. It has to be good, or else people will read it and forget it in an instant. To get noticed you need to encourage people to read your ad. Then you need to encourage them to click on it. PPC ad campaigns can fail so easy.

It would be great if we could fit in a really long story about all the good things we sell and why people need them, but there's only three lines to entice them with. You have to get attention and get a click with those three lines, so make them good. Making a PPC campaign work is all about getting off to a good start and those three lines are all you have to work your magic with.

There's an 80/20 rule that applies for this. The majority of an ad's impact is in the headline - which makes up about 20% of the ad itself. This is true in many other forms of writing and it's very much true in pay per click advertising. So make it good, because there's nothing worse than a bad headline.

Make sure everything about your ad is perfect. When you have only a few available words, they must all be the right ones, and they have to be properly spelled and punctuated. Use the wrong word, or make a spelling mistake, and you're losing customers. Even if it doesn't seem like these things are a big deal, they could result in an unprofessional appearance. People who would have clicked on your ad won't bother to now.

Make sure you get the attention of viewers first and foremost. There will be lots of ads other than the one you placed on the search page. If you really want those customers, you'll have to create an ad that really stands out from the crowd. Design your headline and copy so that they are appealing and generate lots of attention.

Keyword placement is very important. The keyword phrase (or a variation on it) needs to be in the headline. Next, make sure that your second line is relevant and really eye-catching. Don't use phrases like "quality service" or state however long you've been in the business. These types of approaches don't wok with pay per click.

The last line of your ad is important, too. Use it to tell the viewer what's best about your product, or use it to highlight an offer or deal. This will increase the chances of a click through and an eventual sale. Never use deceptive wording to get more clicks, however. A click that doesn't result in a sale is a wasted one, because you pay for it anyway.

PPC ads are shorter than conventional types of ads but there is a definite science to making them work emerging amongst its advertisers. Make sure that your ads stand out and demand attention, keep the text clear and concise as well as effective - you can stand out from your competitors for some really big sales.

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