By : Nidhi Gupta

Pay per click (PPC) is an advertising technique used on websites, advertising networks, and search engines. Pay per click search engines has become an integrated part of search engine optimization. They are all based on the auction principle. You make a bid for a certain keyword or keyword phrase, and the amount decides the ranking.

Pay per click advertising on search engines allows you to choose keywords you would like your site to appear for when a search is performed. You decide how much you are willing to pay each time a person clicks on the search results. The more you are willing to pay per click, the higher your site will appear in the results for the keywords you choose.

By searching, there are hundreds of pay per click search engines, but the most popular are Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture). Depending on the search engine, prices per click is between US$0.01 and US$0.50. Very popular search terms can cost much more on popular engines. Abuse of the pay per click model can result in click fraud.

Parties Involved

In this area, a publisher is a webmaster that displays ads from the advertiser. In order to bring together advertisers and publishers, a number of advertising networks were established. They are often search engines, who already had many advertisers as clients, who they could link up with other publishers. The advertising network collects the money from the advertisers, and passes a portion onto the publisher.

Google is an example of this. Often these combined search engines and advertising networks, are referred to simply as PPC engines.

Categories

PPC engines can be categorized in “Keyword”, “Product”, “Service” engines. However, a number of companies may fall in two or more categories. More models are continually evolving. Currently, pay per click programs does not generate any revenue solely from traffic for sites that display the ads. Revenue is generated only when a user clicks on the ad itself.

- Keyword PPCs

Advertisers using these bids on keywords, which can be words or phrases, and can include product model numbers. When a user searches for a particular word or phrase, the list of advertiser links appears in order of bidding. Keywords, or search terms, are the very heart of pay per click advertising.

There are hundreds of Keyword pay per click search engines. Notable PPC Keyword search engines include: Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture Services), Microsoft adCenter, LookSmart, Miva (formerly FindWhat), Ask (formerly Ask Jeeves), 7Search, Kanoodle, and Baidu.

- Product PPCs

Product engines are also called Product comparison engines or Price comparison engines. Product engines let advertisers provide “feeds” of their product databases and when users search for a product, the links to the different advertisers for that particular product appear, giving more prominence to advertisers who pay more, but letting the user sort by price to see the lowest priced product and then click on it to buy.

BizRate.com, Shopzilla.com, NexTag, PriceGrabber.com, and Shopping.com,are noteworthy PPC Product search engines from hundreds of them.

- Service PPCs

Service engines let advertisers provide feeds of their service databases and when users search for a service offering links to advertisers for that particular service appear, giving prominence to advertisers who pay more, but letting users sort their results by price or other methods. Some Product PPCs have expanded into the service space while other service engines operate in specific verticals.

Some of the PPC services include NexTag, SideStep, and TripAdvisor.

- Pay per call

Similar to pay per click, pay per call is a business model for ad listings in search engines and directories that allows publishers to charge local advertisers on a per-call basis for each lead (call) they generate. The term “pay per call” is sometimes confused with “click to call”. Click-to-call, along with call tracking, is a technology that enables the pay-per-call business model.

Pay-per-call is not just restricted to local advertisers. Many of the pay-per-call search engines allow advertisers with a national presence to create ads with local telephone numbers.

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By : Nidhi Gupta

To get listed on a directory, you submit your front page URL using the directory’s submission (add URL) form. Your submission is then reviewed by an editor and ranked according to the description provided on the form. Reviewers check every submission to decide if it belongs in the directory, and if it was submitted to the most appropriate category.

Only Human

When submitting to any directory, be sure to keep your reviewer in mind and treat your submission with kid gloves. Always read the submission guidelines before submitting, and follow them closely. As with everything in life, being polite and following the rules will get you far.

Being rude and arrogant will most likely result in unfavorable alteration of your description — or a completely ignored submission. Reviewers can change the content of submissions at will, so think about your Web site as objectively as possible and prepare accordingly.

Choosing the best category must be done judiciously. One good method involves doing a search using the most relevant keyword phrases for your site, and noting which categories pop up.

Look for the most appropriate category, analyzing your site as an outside observer would.

Choose the category your site truly belongs in, not the one where you’d prefer to see it.

Choose subcategories over top-level categories. If you submit to a top-level category even though appropriate subcategories are available, there’s a good chance your submission will be denied. Similarly, if your site is local in nature, be sure to submit it to the appropriate geographic region.

Once you’ve decided upon the most appropriate category, find and click the “add a site” (or submit URL) link. Now you’re ready to begin the submission process.

Steps to Success

In choosing a title, most directories do not allow you much leeway. To be safe, a good rule of thumb is to use your company name or the official name of your Web site. Adherence to this rule varies by directory, however. Yahoo! is very strict and allows company or Web site names only. Zeal and dmoz are more lenient, but they are beginning to crack down.

Occasionally, these directories will allow you to slip some keywords into the title, but do so at your own risk. This practice could raise a red flag for your submission and subject it to additional scrutiny.

The Web site description posted with your URL is a big factor in how your site will rank once it’s listed in the directory. It is very important to do this right the first time. If you put too much promotional jargon in your description or make it too long, for example, the editors are sure to change it. When they do, you can bet your keywords won’t appear in the final listing. Be concise, be sensible, and, most of all, include your most important keywords whenever possible.

If you’ve created a good meta description tag for your site, start with that. Copy and paste it into the submission form, then start deleting extraneous words. Move words around until you have the shortest yet most descriptive sentence possible. If you do this correctly, chances are the editors won’t change it. They’ll appreciate the fact that you saved them editing time.

Be sure the words you’re using in your description appear on the pages of your Web site. If they don’t, and the site appears to be about subjects other than what you described in your form, your description might be edited. If you don’t have a good grasp on how to do this, you might want to have a professional do it for you. I say this only because it’s very difficult to change a site description once it’s listed in most Internet directories.

Once you’ve taken the steps I’ve described, your submission should be successful. Each directory has its unique procedure, but the basics of choosing the most appropriate category and creating the best description apply across the board.

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By : Admin

Every businessman who is into online business is always concerned about the conversion rate of his website. Many have spent a number of sleepless nights. But what this conversion rate is? The relationship between visitors to a web site and actions considered to be a “conversion,” such as a sale or request to receive more information. Simply put, your conversion rate is a measure of the number of potential customers that go on to buy. And in the context of the website, it is usually the percentage of visitors that make a purchase. The crux of the matter is, the webmaster basically concentrate more on increasing the traffic to their website rather focusing on conversion.

There may be numerous reasons of low conversion rate. However, the solution is pretty simple. Try these simple methods and experience the transition.

• Keep your website easy to use and interact. The more difficult you make your web site to use; the less people will buy from you. A well designed website should be easily accessible, quick to load, browser friendly and above all user-friendly. It should leave no space for confusion as far as interactivity with the website is concerned. Buttons and links should be placed at the right place and work properly. Make all attempts to make your calls to action clear and unambiguous.

• The more you will be clear and precise, more beneficial it will be for your website and conversion. If you are running short of stock or non-availability of stock, intimate this on your customers rather than leaving them in the quest of a product that is not there at all. And most importantly, always be clear about the shipping charges!

• Do not waste your visitor’s time by asking irrelevant things that you don’t need to know. Asking for too much of information might annoy them. This is one of the biggest mistakes that most of the sites make. You can give the user the option to do all of the things by all means, but make sure it’s not compulsory.

• It will be better on your part to give your customer a reason to trust you. Most of the people feel cautious while shopping online and they will certainly deny providing their Credit card information without any trust. You can consider showing the “VeriSign Secured” logo to the user if you have a SSL certificate. This will help you build trust.

• Returns on the web are a major issue for consumers. It will be better to have a clear return policy. Users are impressed with sites with a good returns policy and are more likely to buy from them. People don’t like to pay to return things so free return shipping is usually a good option, if commercially viable.

• Again, keep your customers informed at every step of the process, before and after sale, about the delivery date, dispatch etc. If your customers will have a pleasant experience buying from you they might certainly recommend you to their friends and relatives and will be more likely to buy from you again.

• Do not limit the world of customers by not offering the user a reasonable selection of methods of payment. Let them explore the methods right from the credit card to cheques, VeriSign and PayPal. The more they will feel comfortable with the payment options, more they will be likely to buy on your site.

• Do not overlook the quality of your site and information (the design and the content of your website) and branding, most importantly. Let the customers know about your USP’s because your USP is what sets you apart from your competition. Shout it from the proverbial rooftops. Also, consider up-selling and cross-selling. They are tried and tested sales techniques, and there is no reason not to use them on the web.

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