... me fist explain what PPC advertising is. Basically, it's aform of advertising in which you create a small 2-3 linetext-based advertisement. The ad will have a headline, which isclickable and links to your website. Here's an example:Top Cruise DealsGreat deals on all types of cruises.30% discounts for online purchases.www.your-url.com You can see examples of these ads in action by going toGoogle.com and running a search on any search term. After yourun your search, you'll fin...

...d the PPC ads on the right-hand sideof the screen. The owners of each of the ads pay Google a feeeach time someone clicks on their ad. This fee can be anywherefrom .10 cents to several dollars depending on the popularityand demand of the keyword.The goal of the ad owner is to maximize the number of qualityclicks. A quality click is a click from someone that has aninterest in what you're trying to sell. A low-quality click is aclick from someone that really doesn't have any interest in whatyou're trying to sell.Since the space in the Google Sponsored Links area is limited(about 10 slots per page), and the number of people using PPC toadvertise their products is fairly large, there has to be a wayof controlling who gets what placement (also called Adrank) inthe Sponsored Links hierarchy.Google controls this placement by 3 mechanisms:1) Keywords/keyphrases2) Bid price3) Quality Score The goal is to get your ad in the Sponsored Links section ofthe first page (or at most the second page) of the returnedGoogle search results. That means your ad can be anywhere in theSponsored Links position from 1-10, or 1-20 if you take intoaccount the second page. People don't normally search beyond thefirst couple of pages of returned search results, so having yourad appear on the third page (or beyond) diminishes your chancesof the ad being seen.To get your ad in the first or second page of Google's SponsoredLinks, and to maximize the number of quality clicks, you need 3things:1) Good Keywords/keyphrases2) Bid in an active bid range3) Good Quality Score Using Good Keywords/KeyphrasesKeywords (or keyphrases) are the words that people type intoGoogle when they run a search. You need to select the keywordsthat relate to your product so Google will know when to displayyour ad. From your perspective (the online Marketer), goodkeywords are the words that relate to your product. For example,if you run a Google PPC ad campaign and you're selling a courseon how to train dogs, then a good keyword list might consist of:dog"Dog training""Train my dog""Training for dogs""dog obedience""dog growling" Note: using quotes instructs Google to show your ad onlywhen the searched keywords appear in that particular order.The above keyword list is then applied to your Google PPCcampaign. Now, every time a user runs a search for any of thesekeywords on Google, your ad COULD be returned in the 'SponsoredLinks' section of the returned search results in Google.As we mentioned previously, the keywords are not the onlydetermining factor governing which ads appear in Google. Keep inmind, there are likely many other people running their own PPCcampaigns that have the same keywords as you. And since thereare only about 10 slots to place the sponsored ads in Google'sfirst page, the ads that get a position in one of those 10 slotsare the ads that are willing to pay the most for each click andthe ads that have the higher Quality Score.A good way to find keywords for your product is to use theGoogle Adwords Keyword Finder at:https://adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=KeywordSandboxBidding in an Active Bid RangeAll popular (and many not so popular) keywords have an activebid range. The active bid range is the cost per click (CPC)range that results in your ad appearing in a preferred positionwithin Google's Sponsored Links area (usually position 1-20).Obviously, the higher your ad is in the position, the moreactive (more clicks) will likely result.So how much should you pay for each click to make sure you're adis in the actice bid range? You should first find out what thegoing rate is for that particular keyword. You can get a goodidea of what people are willing to pay for a given keyword byusing Overture's Bid Tool at:http://uv.bidtool.overture.com/d/search/tools/bidtool/Note: your goal is to get a position anywhere on the first pageof the Google search result, or second page at most, so youreally don't have to make sure you have the highest bid. Infact, you can even make more money by bidding much lower thanthe highest bid. For example, say you're bidding on the "dogtraining" keyphrase and you find that the 1st position for thatkeyphrase is going for $1.50 per click. You may very well findthat the 4th or 5th position is going for $0.30 - $0.40 perclick. In this case, I would opt for the 4th or 5th position.The cost savings is quite significant.Getting High Quality ScoreWhat is a Quality Score? Well, it's a few things... The QualityScore is derived from the keywords Click Through Rate (CTR),relevance of the text in the ad to the keyword, how well thekeywords has performed in the past, and other things that Googlehas kindly decided not to share. Since there are some unknownfactors here, it's best to focus on what you can do to increaseyour Quality Score.One thing you can do is aim for a high Click Through Rate (CTR).A CTR is a percentage that is calculated by dividing the numberof clicks by the number of times your ad appeared. For example,say your ad appeared 100 times, and out of those 100 times, 1person clicked on your ad. Your CTR for that ad would then be1/100=1%.Another thing you can do is make sure your ad's text is relevantto the keyword. For example, if you were advertising a dogtraining course and your keyword was "cars", then the relevancyof the keyword to the ad is low.All right, that's the basics of Google Adwords. Give it a try!There's no better way to learn than through doing!Sincerely,Michael Ellis