INCREASE YOUR SITE TRAFFIC With
The Pay-Per-Click Search Engines And GUARANTEE YOU ALWAYS PROFIT Using These
3 Simple Formulas
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How would you like some
traffic? How about some cheap targeted traffic? No problem.
The pay-per-click search engines are exactly what you need to INJECT YOUR
WEB SITE WITH A FRESH STREAM OF TARGETED POTENTIAL CUSTOMERS -- people who
are actively searching for what you're offering -- without the typical
expenses and risks associated with many other forms of online advertising.
A QUICK OVERVIEW:
Pay-per-click search engines are much like auctions -- they allow you to bid
for top-ranking positions under keywords of your choice.
For each visitor who searches the keyword(s) you rank under and then clicks
through to your web site, you pay whatever you bid. Prices typically range
from 1 cent to numerous dollars per click-through for popular keywords.
And this means that there are
THREE KEY ADVANTAGES to bidding on keywords in the pay-per-click search
engines:
1) YOU ONLY EVER PAY FOR ADVERTISING THAT WORKS because you only pay when
someone actually clicks through to your web site. This means that
pay-per-click search engines can be a cheap way to draw targeted traffic to
your web site.
2) Pay-per-click search engines will LIST YOUR SITE WITHIN AS LITTLE AS A
COUPLE OF HOURS -- a couple of days at most. So rather than waiting weeks,
even months, for your web site to be listed like you will with many of the
other search engines, you can start profiting from the increased traffic and
sales almost immediately!
3) All you need to do to BE RANKED IN A #1 SPOT is outbid the other sites.
It's a pretty straightforward process compared to achieving and maintaining
a top ranking position in the "regular" search engines.
Obviously, the pay-per-click search engines are a powerful opportunity to
increase your web site traffic for little cost. The trick, though, is making
certain that you choose your maximum bids based on the monetary value of one
visitor to your web site.
And this is where a lot of people get confused or make costly mistakes...
They either abandon bidding in the pay-per-click engines because it seems
too confusing, or they bid more than a visitor is actually worth to their
site, losing money on their advertising!
STRATEGIES FOR MAXIMUM PAY-PER-CLICK SUCCESS:
In the following article, I'm going to lead you through a simple
step-by-step process that will show you how to collect the numbers you need
to calculate the value of a visitor to your web site -- using a special
three part formula -- and how to use this information to purchase
targeted advertising in the pay-per-click search engines.
STEP #1: COMPILE A LIST OF KEY STATISTICS
Before you'll be able to start calculating the worth of your visitors and
what you can afford to pay for advertising, you'll need some key figures;
chiefly total number of sales, gross revenue, total expenses, and unique
visitors for a set period of time.
a) TOTAL NUMBER OF SALES:
This figure is easy to calculate -- you probably keep a close eye on your
sales totals anyway. Just add up the number of sales you have made over a
set period of time.
For example, this month you may have sold 73 widgets. So your total number
of sales equals 73.
b) GROSS REVENUE:
Here's another figure that you probably already have at your fingertips.
After all, what business owner doesn't keep track of their gross revenue?
If you sold 73 widgets for $10 each this month, your gross revenue would be
$730.
c) TOTAL EXPENSES:
This is an important figure that many new business owners neglect because,
honestly, it's just more fun to calculate gross revenue.
However, until you know your total expenses, you won't be able to accurately
calculate your net revenue -- your "in the pocket" profits!
To guarantee that your business always generates a profit, your gross
revenue should always be greater than your total expenses.
So sit down and start adding
up all of the expenses that you deal with to produce, package, and deliver
your product or service. This figure should also include all of your
operating costs for a set period of time.
d) UNIQUE VISITORS:
Frequently confused with "hits" (which refers to the number of times each
file that makes up a particular web page has been requested from your web
host's server), "unique visitors" refers to the number of different people
who visited your site. And it's the most important measure of web site
traffic hands down!
To calculate the number of unique visitors to your web site, you'll need to
contact your web host to get your server logs.
(For those of you who don't know what a "server log" is, it's simply a file
that records each time someone requests one of your web pages and the files
associated with it -- and IT'S LITERALLY A GOLD MINE OF DATA!)
Your web host should be able to provide you with your server logs. In fact,
they may already have log analysis software that will convert your server
logs into easy-to-read reports, graphs, and charts.
If not, you can download your own log analysis software by searching "log
analyzers" at Download.com (http://www.download.com).
WARNING! If you decide to research and test log analysis software, be
careful to look for those that offer "unique visitors" as part of their
reports, not just "user sessions." One visitor may return to your site
numerous times (user sessions), so to be certain your calculations are
accurate, you must know "unique visitors."
STEP #2: CALCULATE THE VALUE OF A VISITOR TO YOUR WEB SITE.
Once, you've collected the statistics and figures you need, doing the actual
calculations is the easy part. Simply plug the numbers into the following 3
SIMPLE FORMULAS:
a) CONVERSION RATE: Figure out how many unique visitors you need to
close one sale.
Unique Visitors / Total Number of Sales = Conversion Rate
EXAMPLE: If over the month of November, you calculate that your web site
received 4,298 unique visitors, and you sold 35 widgets, your equation would
look like this:
4,298 Unique Visitors / 35 Sales = 122.8 Unique Visitors Per Sale
So in this case, your conversion rate would equal 122.8, which means that
you typically close 1 sale for every 122.8 visitors to your site.
b) NET PROFIT PER SALE: Figure out how much profit you earn on a
single sale.
Gross Revenue - Total Expenses / Total Number of Sales = Net Profit Per Sale
EXAMPLE: If over the month of November, you sold 35 widgets for $97 each,
your gross revenue would be $3,395 (35 X $97). And let's say you calculated
your total expenses (production, packaging, web host fees, etc...) for the
month of November to be $2,537.
This means that:
$3,395 Gross Revenue - $2,537 Total Expenses / 35 Sales = $24.51 Net Profit
Per Sale
In this example, your Net Profit Per Sale would be $24.51. This is "in your
pocket, after expenses, you can bank it" profits.
c) VISITOR WORTH: Figure out how much a single visitor is worth to
you.
Net Profit Per Sale / Conversion Rate = Visitor Worth
EXAMPLE: This is the easy part. Just take the Net Profit Per Sale that we
calculated in part b ($24.51) and divide it by the Conversion Rate that we
calculated in part a.
$24.51 Net Profit Per Sale / 122.8 Conversion Rate = $0.1995 or $0.20
So in this example, each visitor to your web site is worth $0.20. (Not to be
confused with the value of a customer, which is $24.51!) This means that you
can afford to pay as much as $0.20 to attract one new
visitor to your web site without losing money.
STEP #3: PUT YOURSELF IN FRONT OF YOUR BEST POTENTIAL
CUSTOMERS.
Okay! You're almost ready to put your newfound knowledge to profitable use
and start buying targeted traffic in the pay-per-click search engines. I say
almost because there is ONE MORE IMPORTANT STEP you may need to take...
Do you know who your target market is? Do you have an accurate profile of
the folks who are purchasing from your web site? And do you know what
keywords they're searching to find your web site?
If you're not sure, then I'm afraid you'll need to do a bit more homework
before you start purchasing traffic because until you know who your
customers are and what keywords they're using to find your web site, you
risk wasting money on unqualified traffic.
The best way to learn who your customers are and why they bought your
product is by speaking with them directly. Get on the phone, do an e-mail
survey, offer a free gift for feedback... whatever it takes!
The more you know about the people who have already bought from you, the
easier it will be to TARGET NEW CUSTOMERS.
However, another way you can figure out which keywords your target market
prefers is by using WordTracker (http://www.marketingtips.com/wordtracker),
an online tool that collects the search results from 24 major search engines
and compiles them into a database which is constantly being updated.
With WordTracker, you can simply type in your keyword or key phrase, and it
will return a list of related keywords and phrases. This is a really useful
feature because it will often produce keyword combinations that you may not
have thought of!
STEP #4: USE THIS INFORMATION TO PURCHASE TRAFFIC IN THE
PAY-PER-CLICK SEARCH ENGINES.
Now that you know the keywords and phrases that your best potential
customers are typing into the search engines, and you know the worth of one
visitor to your web site, you're ready to start purchasing traffic.
You can start bidding on the targeted keywords and phrases that you've
researched based on what one visitor to your web site is worth.
In the earlier example, a single visitor to your site was worth 20 cents. So
you could afford to bid as much as 20 cents per visitor in the pay-per-click
search engines without losing money.
Now of course, you'd probably want to bid significantly less than that,
because you'll want to still turn a profit. But if you were to bid 7
cents per visitor, and it took 122.8 visitors to close a sale, YOUR PROFITS
WOULD STILL BE QUITE SUBSTANTIAL:
(20 cents profit per visitor - 7 cents advertising cost per visitor) X 122.8
visitors to close the sale
= $15.96 Total Net Profit Per Sale
Sure, your net profits drop a bit when you pay for advertising, rather than
rely on free sources of traffic.
However, you need to remember that YOUR TOTAL SALES VOLUME IS GOING TO GO UP
-- perhaps considerably -- as long as you purchase targeted traffic! And
that means more cash in your pocket at the end of the day!
PAY-PER-CLICK SEARCH ENGINES:
The pay-per-click search engines that you choose to buy traffic from will
depend on your budget.
Overture.com (formerly GoTo.com) is still the granddaddy of the
pay-per-click search engines, but its popularity has driven up the cost of
advertising there.
Minimum bids now start at 5 cents per visitor, there's a set-up fee of $50
(though it's applied to your click-throughs), and there's a monthly minimum
of $20.
Of course, with that said, if you can afford Overture, it's still the best
choice for driving targeted traffic to your site.
You're likely to GET A HIGHER VOLUME OF TRAFFIC FASTER than with any of the
others. Plus, if your site is listed among the top 3 under any particular
keyword, you can expect your site listing to appear in AOL, Lycos, and
AltaVista searches, too.
Other good choices for purchasing traffic include:
FindWhat --
http://www.findwhat.com
7Search --
http://www.7search.com
Kanoodle --
http://www.kanoodle.com
Bay 9 -- http://www.bay9.com
GoClick --
http://www.goclick.com
ePilot --
http://www.epilot.com
SearchGalore --
http://www.searchgalore.com
From this list, I would recommend purchasing traffic from FindWhat first
because this is one of the faster-growing, better-known pay-per-click
engines. But all of the above should prove to be...
Good sources of cheap, targeted traffic!
In the less popular pay-per-click engines, you can still purchase listings
for as little as one cent per visitor. And remember that while you may
not receive high volumes of traffic from any one in particular, because you
only ever pay for actual click-throughs to your site, YOU NEVER LOSE MONEY!
FINAL THOUGHTS:
Without a doubt, purchasing traffic from the pay-per-click search engines is
one of the most profitable, most effective ways to drive targeted traffic to
your web site.
As long as you always base your keyword bids on the value of one visitor to
your web site, you can BE CONFIDENT THAT YOUR ADVERTISING WILL ALWAYS BE
PROFITABLE.
If you're new to Web statistics, you'll want to base your initial
advertising budget on the costs of acquiring a first-time customer. Over
time, however, you'll be able to calculate the value of your lifetime
customers, and use these figures to consider purchasing higher volumes of
advertising.
To ensure you remain profitable, though, and until you're comfortable
accurately calculating these statistics, you should focus on purchasing your
advertising based on the value of your first-time customers.
Remember: Don't GUESS! Base your advertising budget on tangible statistics
-- not your predictions of what your site might earn in the future!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Corey Rudl is the owner of four highly successful
online businesses that attract more than 6,000,000 visitors and generate
over $5.2 million each year. He is also the author of the #1 best-selling
Internet Marketing course online.
To check out his site that's JAM-PACKED WITH THE EXACT INFORMATION YOU NEED
to start, build, and grow your very own profitable Internet business, I
highly recommend visiting
http://www.marketingtips.com/t.cgi/649034
This guy really knows what he's talking about!
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