Question:What does lingerie have to do with an iPod?

Answer:The big guys in the industry are using pay per click (PPC) to show up on page one of Google.

When you do a search for lingerie, you would expect to see Victoria Secret on page one, however the only place on page one Victoria Secret exists is the paid advertising.

When you search for an iPod you expect to see Apple at that top, and you do, but Best Buy and Circuit City don’t show up on the first page naturally. Both companies choose to show up as advertisers, as does Bose for their iPod doc.

Is this a bad thing?

Absolutely not! In the search of being on page one there are certain keywords and terms that you should optimize your web site for. There are other keywords and phrases that are part of your business, but you might not want to optimize your site for them. These keywords and phrases might not be your core business, only a part of it.

Take for example Bose. Their core business is providing high quality sound for your home. Sure an iPod docking station is a part of that, so they want to be on page one.

Maybe Bose has a page on their web site dedicated to their docking station and they are working on the optimization of that page to get it to rank well in the search engines. What should they do in the meantime to make sure they show up on page one? This is where PPC really comes into play.
When there is a keyword that you know you want to be on page one for and your natural ranking is just not quite there, it is time to pull out your wallet and make sure you are there.

The first thing that needs to be decided is what keywords are important; this is really the hardest part. Next is the budget, it is really important to establish a monthly budget that you feel comfortable with. Finally, establish geographically where you target market is. Is your market only in one state, the entire US, maybe the US and Canada, or is it worldwide?

There are three search engines worth looking at that provide a keyword based advertising: Google, Yahoo, and MSN. At first there will be some experimentation in order to get successful campaigns. During this experimentation you might also find that there is one search engine that seems to bring you more qualified leads that actually convert at a higher rate.

In order to do any experimentation it will be necessary to set up analytics on your web site that will allow you to track where people are coming from and if that visit turns into a conversion. There are several packages out there that will do this; some analytics packages out there can be used at no cost.

Let’s look at an example budget of $400 a month. During the experimentation phase you would look at this in $100 chunks and make adjustments to your campaign as necessary. The end goal is to create a campaign that is bringing the most qualified leads that convert.

Being on page one is more about knowing when you should be on page one, not necessarily how you should get there.