There are lots of marketing ideas out there and PPC is one of them. That's where you use one of the search engines own marketing programs to set up a PPC ad. It's really reasy to do and the best part is it's free. At least it is until the clicking starts.
You've seen these PPC ads along the top and side of the screen whenever you have run a search on one of the major web search pages. The ad costs you only when someone clicks on it to activate the hyperlink to your web site. If you use the right key words, the theory is that your ad will show up on the side of search results for those key words.
There's lots of ways to spiff it so that your target viewer is much more narrow, but what we are going to talk about today is a nifty web site that you can use to see what the actual traffic is for some of those key word phrases and what the costs are. Keyword Spy is a terrific site that'll do the job.
It allows you to plug in your key word phrase and pick a country and then it'll return to you the stats for that phrase and others like it. You can quickly see just how many people are running searches and using that key word phrase and the others that are like it. Best part? They also tell you the current cost per click (called "CPC") too.
Let's take, for instance, "Lemon Law." As of this writing, there are 35 PPC advertisers using that phrase and the CPC is $18.27 and in the US there are 201,000 searches using that phrase each month.
Another great thing about KeywordSpy is that they show you, graphically, the last ten months of stats too.
Even better, with one click you can get the background info on those 35 PPC advertisers who are using the Lemon Law phrase. With that info you can see a screenshot of their website, domain name, their PPC budget in CPC terms, the number of PPC keywords their site uses and the number of perceived PPC competitors along with even more info. It's a gold mine for marketers trying to figure out the most cost effective way of using their internet PPC dollars.
With another click you can actually read the PPC ads and get an idea of the "return on investment" of the wording, which KeywordSpy calculates for you. Another click gives you the related keywords. Or misspelled keywords. And there's lots more.
And it's all free.
You can get even more results if you register for their "lifetime free trial."
Okay, so the point is that if you want to try out some pay per click advertising, this is the first web site you need to go to so you don't waste your money. www.KeywordSpy.co.uk.
Next time, we'll talk about what I think is the single most entertaining, and effective, guru on marketing. He's remarkable.
Ron Burdge
Helping lawyers make a living. Since 1978.
