PPC advertising is contextual – at least, it is in the vast majority of cases, including the famed Google Adsense. That means that the adverts are generated on the basis of the words inside the text of a website; that can content articles, how-to guides, reviews or any other manner of text-based content. Contextual advertising allows PPC companies to show adverts that the visitors are assumed to be interested in; for example, if someone is reading an article about horse ownership, a contextual PPC will show adverts that relate to horses, horse ownership and similar. This increases the likelihood of someone clicking the advert, and thus generating revenue both for Google and for you, the advertiser. It also makes for a simple way of operation, with the advertiser not needing to independently research companies to show adverts for – they are generated automatically, through contextual advertising.

The advertising uses “keywords” to generate the ads. So in the aforementioned example, an article with the keyword “horse ownership” in it would produce ads from companies who listed themselves as operating within the “horse ownership” sector. Different industries pay different amounts per click, depending on the popularity of the keyword in question. Some clicks will pay on five or six cents per clicks, whereas others will pay several dollars.

You can use the Google Keyword Tool to check which niches, and keywords, have the highest pay outs per click. Build good, informative content around these keywords and display Adsense (or another PPC programme) on the website, and your internet marketing career is up and running.

The sign up procedure is like signing up for anything else, though you will need to provide your real name and your address so that payments can be sent to you. When the sign up process is complete, one follows on-screen guides to making your own ‘advertisement unit’. You can usually pick the colours and the font of the advert, but the advert content itself is generated in a variety of ways – you do not actually pick the companies that you will be advertising. Instead, the ad unit usually picks up ‘keywords’ from the text of your website and displays relevant adverts in your chosen colour and style; this is known as contextual advertising, and works incredibly well.

You will be provided with a snippet of HTML code, and wherever you insert this on your website, the ad will eventually appear. Whenever someone clicks on that ad, you will earn a pre-determined amount of money in to your PPC account. This can be anything from eight cents to $5, depending on the demand of the niche your website is based around. The money from ‘clicks’ accumulates in your PPC account, and when you reach a certain amount of money, you can request a check to be sent to you. PPC is simple, easy and efficient, and requires minimal coding know-how.

If you are using WordPress to create the website through which you hope to achieve your Internet Marketing dreams, it is well worth considering switching your CMS to WordPress. This is all the more true if you are planning on (or are already) using pay-per-click (often referred to as just PPC) advertising. While WordPress itself provides minimal support for inserting PPC adverts in to posts, content and around a site, there are plenty of ‘plugins’ that specialise in just that.

In WordPress speak, a ‘plugin’ is the method used to add another layer of functionality to WordPress. Plugins work from within the main WordPress dashboard, and all are free to install and use. You can, for example, use plugins to add your stat counter codes to a website, or to help cache pages better.

Naturally, you can use plugins to insert PPC codes in to the content of your website. All you have to do is configure the ad code, insert it in to the plugin instruction box and then choose where and when it is displayed. The ad will then appear naturally when a post is published. Popular choices for this free service include Adsense Now and Adsense Anytime; despite the names, they work with any PPC system, and give your website an ease of use that hand-coders and other CMS users can only aspire to.

Most Internet Marketers who use PPC systems are aware of the importance of the fold, but it isn’t something you want to overlook. While providing good content that people want to read is an essential aspect of internet marketing, that doesn’t mean everyone will read the content when visiting through a search engine results page. Some people will click through a link, having a quick glance around and never bother the scroll down to read the actual content. You can even view how often this is happening with your stat counter, which should display a “time spent on site” for each visitor.

If you rely on PPC methods as part of your monetisation strategy, these visitors are a waste if you only use PPC adverts in the content. To ensure as many people see your adverts as possible, try and have one banner ad in the ‘header’ section of the page, above the fold. That way, even those visitors that only last a couple of seconds will see some of your adverts – and hopefully, will click on them, too.

When you register with any PPC company, you will be required – like with most sign up processes for anything online – to agree to a set of terms and conditions. While most of us will just tick the terms and conditions box and not give it a second thought, it is well worth reading through any PPC terms and conditions. The reason is simple; without knowing what you can and can’t do, you can’t make any money.

Every PPC company is different. Some will allow you to display their adverts on any type of website, while others will not allow their ads to be used on sites that contain references to gambling, the adult industry or any other less than ‘safe’ industry. While you may think it is worth the risk, and you can gain greatly from displaying PPC adverts on such a site, this is not a risk worth taking. In fact, it’s a risk that could cost you a lot of money.

Buried in those terms and conditions will not only be the restrictions for what type of websites the company adverts can be used on, but the penalties for breaking that rule. The penalty is usually swift, absolute and irreversible: closure of your account, with any money in the account becoming forfeit. Don’t risk it; read the T&Cs and stick to them, without exception.

If you are clear and certain of the advertisement that you want to use, sure of your landing page and have no alternative wording to play around with, then maybe you shouldn’t bother with testing. But you should give some thought to the matter if there is any doubt in your mind that you are running the right advertisement. Don’t just assume that you’ve got it right first time. Keep an open mind and you can maximize your potential income from PPC sales.

When there is so much data out there that can feed into the best eventual result, it is essential to keep your options open. The last thing you want is to let other people pick up sales you could be getting, so it is worth running two or even three ads simultaneously with subtle differences between them all.

We’ve all done a bit of window shopping in our time – and there are as many of us who will not take the first choice offered to us as those who will. This means that just being in the top three, four or even five ads will have positive results for you. If you have done a good enough job of selling the product on the landing page then you may well find that the lower price you paid to be slightly lower on the ranking was excellent value, because people will check a few different sites before settling on a final decision.

The prize, after all, is not just being in first position on a list of rankings which are decided on he basis of who pays most. The real prize is the income from clicks and sales which can only really be achieved by good selling on your site. By all means aim for number one on the list of rankings, but if you fall a little short it really is not the end of the world.

The statistics that come with any PPC account are important. You will see where your clicks and referrals come from. This will not only be the search engines that feature your ads, but also the networks to which they distribute those same ads. All of the major search engines do this, but they cannot control absolutely the quality of the networks they send your ads to. This can end up in a very low conversion rate for referrals from those networks – which will generally turn out to be fraudulent. If you have referring domains with a bounce rate around 90%, it will be fraudulent. Some search engines will ask you to call them to remove these sites from your list and save you from paying for useless traffic – however, Google allows you to move them into an “excluded sites” folder. Don’t just let this go – it can cost you money for no benefit, and can drain a budget if left alone.

Part of this mistake is when you pick the wrong page as a landing page for customers. If they click your ad, they are of a mind to make a purchase. Therefore, it is about taking that initial lead and turning it into a successful sale. The landing page they come to should showcase the product, tell them why they should consider making the purchase from you, and show them why making the purchase now is in their interests. If you have mentioned special offers on your ad, then make sure that the landing page tells them how they can get their hands on such offers.

There are few things more frustrating for a customer than clicking on an ad and finding what amounts to irrelevant content. It will make them doubt the worth of the site, and the conversion rate drops with every click it takes to get them from your landing page to your sales form.

For example, if you have special deals on the products you are selling, tell people! That’s what they are interested in, and what will grab their attention. Do they want to save money? Sure they do, so give prominence to how you can help them do this. That’s something they will want to know about. Also – naturally – say something about your product. You haven’t got much space, so if your ad just says “A&P Consulting! We Have Bargains! Look At Our Site! Lots of Variety!” and variations upon that theme, you’re less likely to get clicks, and more likely to have people click another link while wondering what exactly you do.

You have a word limit, so make absolutely sure that each word used has value. Don’t just throw a hotchpotch of superlatives, and don’t just use bald information. You need the information in there and you need to make it interesting.