The Pinnacle

You may have read or heard that one of the easiest ways to make money online is simply using Pay Per Click advertising such as Google AdWords (although there are many others).

All you have to do is bid on some search phrases and then send the visitors to a “sales page” that is offering affiliate commissions.  Is it really this easy?

The short answer is YES - it really is.  The LONG answer is that unless you configure your advertising campaign correctly, you will end up spending a lot more than you will ever make.

Configuring your Ad Campaign - the “inside scoop”

Your Keywords or search phrases must be grouped so that search phrases that contain many of the same words are in one group.   Then, these words are set up in an individual “ad group” and you design an advertisement that has the same common words as the ad group at least 2 times in the ad.

This is called setting up a “message to market” match.  If someone types in “how to ride a horse”, but your ad says “Key to Horseback Riding”, there is no match.  The words must match EXACTLY.

Why?

Because Google AdWords has something called a “quality score” that your ads are rated by.  The better the search term and your ad match, the higher your quality score.  The higher your Quality Score, the LOWER your cost per click is for the same ad position.

In fact, with a high enough quality score, you can get position number 1 or 2 on the first page of Google for less than your competitor is paying for position number 3 or even number 5.

There is one other factor that goes into the Qualtiy Score and that is the page that you are sending the traffic to.  Take our “how to ride a horse” example.  If the “sales page” that you are directing people to is about cowboy boots, that will make your quality score lower.  If, on the other hand, the sales page is a course or book on how to ride a horse, your Q score will be very high.

All three of these factors weigh in when quality score is computed.  The more in line with the original search phrase, the higher the Q score and the lower your cost per click.