More than ever, the PPC ad writers now has to concentrate on making the ad tighter and crispier. He or she has to use 25 or so words given by search engines in such a way that a PPC ad makes only desirable searchers click the link. This is a challenge which can be surpassed, and this as well as the next article will help you do that.

How to write killing PPC Headline

Length of a headline

A headline is the most important part of an advertisement, as this is the part of a PPC ad that attracts viewers’ attention. For a Pay per Click advertisement, a rule of thumb should be to use a headline that is not more than 5 words.

My personal recommendation on this matter is 4 words.

Call to action

The goal of a headline is to attract attention, so let’s stick to that. Do not include call to action line or hot button in your headline. It will make you sound too needy. Keep this for the body where it will work better.

Keyword insertion

If you have 2 or more-words keyword phrase then you can alter the length of your headline to make it 5 words, but when doing so, always remember to keep the non-keyword words shorter. If you are going to use dynamic keyword insertion then make sure your headline reads well with the keyword options you are bidding for. It should not sound weird with any of the keywords.

Try to keep the keyword at the beginning of the headline.

Word selection

The non-keyword words that you will insert in the headline should be emotionally charged, as all the decisions are emotional. No one is ration out there.

Following these tips when writing a PPC ad could be challenging at first, but soon you will get hold of it. After which, writing a PPC headline will be all downhill.

This brings us to the end of this article on PPC headline writing tips, in the next article I will talk about the body part.

We notice only few advertisements because we relate to only a few products somehow, or some of the advertisements are done creatively, or they have some unique placement innovation. Apart from classified advertisements, rest of the display advertisements have started showing less of overwhelming response in comparison to others forms of media of advertising. Mostly they go unnoticed. Have you ever thought despite of being most credible medium, offering benefits like refer back value why this medium is not doing well in terms of advertising?

Too many advertisements in newspaper, that’s advertisement clutter, may be one big hindrance on the way of its success. Too many advertisements make us feel irritated and we don’t bother to see each of them. So the message goes unnoticed.

News paper advertising has also become quite expensive. To save expense nowadays people advertise within a small space and compromise with the creativity, making mandatory things like logo, brand name, package shot prominent within the small space. So dearth of creative advertisements has made it quite obvious for the people to ignore them.

In a busy day an average person spends around 20 minutes in scanning the newspaper. In that short time grabbing attention of the person towards the desired message is really challenging act. And also daily news papers stay with us just for a day. Relative short life span of the medium is disadvantageous for the advertisers. So multiple insertions are required to get noticed.

Newspapers generally do not use high end quality of paper, which limit’s the production quality. Poor production kills the creativity.

News paper is not a target market customized medium, rather it’s a mass medium, it talks to all. Several times it may reach all unwanted people, who may never buy your product or service and you may miss out your target market. It always has the risk of reaching out the wrong people.

With growing popularity of internet lot of people have switched over to e-paper from newspaper in hand. Online version of publication may not carry all pages bearing advertisements. And in this case print ad turns into online ad, which is mostly ignored and not remembered.

Hopefully some innovation will change the fortune of news paper advertisements.

An ideal cover letter has 4 parts –

Salutation

Letter should address the person you wish to communicate with. This person may hire you. Spell the full name correctly.

Opening

Opening paragraph of the letter is very important, as it’s the first step to appeal to the reader. If you are applying in response to an advertisement, mention that.

Body

This is the most descriptive part of the letter. It should reflect your educational qualification as per your resume, your job experience. You have to sell yourself in most attractive package in this part.

Closing

End has to be interesting, humble and effective. At the end, request for an interview/appointment. Leave a thank note. Use standard complimentary notes like – ‘Sincerely yours’ or ‘Your faithfully’. Leave some space for your signature and below that type your full name.

How to craft the letter?

• Customize the cover letter, as per the employer. Do research concerning the employer before writing the letter. Specifically relate your skills and aptitude with the job you are applying for.
• Mention the source, from where you came to know about the given position. Don’t forget to mention title of the position you are applying for.
• Mention reasons of your interest in the organization. To write in detail, do your homework about the company, its success stories, recent projects, and upcoming projects.
• Only display relevant skills and experience. Don’t include unrelated ones.
• Emphasize on your matching educational qualification, abilities, strengths, and achievements.

Remember certain important points while writing

• Be brief and hit on the point
• Don’t make mistake
• Use word processor and spell check
• Avoid clumsy fonts and colors

Don’t let the chances of casting a good impression go waste with a poor cover letter. Follow the guidelines and craft a brief effective cover letter. Attach it with your CV and send across. Cross your fingers and wait for the interview call. Good luck!

In the poll, around 35% of the American consumers have said that they will not purchase a brand because the brand had a distasteful advertisement. Another 28% respondents said that they have said that they didn’t buy the product because they did not like the spokesperson used by the brand, while another 27% said they didn’t buy because of the program and event sponsored by the brand.

This poll has given a strong message to the marketers, and now everyone is forced to be diligent in choosing what to say, how to say where to say, and whom to use to say it. In other words, companies will need to be more careful in deciding their advertisement message, creative expression of the message, program and events to sponsor, and brand ambassador to choose.

We have often spoken if a celebrity has an impact on a brand or not. This poll clearly suggests that it does have an effect on consumer purchase. Marketers now need to be cautious in choosing a spokesperson for a brand, and in the light of this poll, running an extensive test run of advertisements is advisable. See image for the poll result.

Well, if you don’t then it is high time to start using sponsored forum posts to promote your business. In a study conducted by PostRelease, it was found that sponsored forum posts in targeted online forum increases the response rate by more than 100% one year after the paid forum posts campaign has ended provided they are:

• Marked as advertisement, and
• They are posted in the targeted online forums

The study has recorded the click-through rate of sponsored forum posts at various point after the posts has been made. The results were as follow:

• The click through rate increase by 40% after 60 days of a sponsored forum post appearance.
• The click through rate increase by 77% after 180 days of a sponsored forum post appearance.
• The click through rate increase by 103.6% after 360 days of a sponsored forum post appearance.

The read rate of the sponsored posts also saw a rise during the same time frame, but it did not increased as much as did the click-through rate. The read rate results were as follow:

• The read rate increase by 28.8% after 60 days of a sponsored forum post appearance.
• The click through rate increase by 49.2% after 180 days of a sponsored forum post appearance.
• The click through rate increase by 60.6% after 360 days of a sponsored forum post appearance.

Thus, I believe marking advertisement on sponsored forum posts are after all not all that bad.

-Using too many keywords is one of the number one mistakes that many Adwords users make.  You want to stay away from generic keywords, and stick only to keywords that directly pertain to your ad.  Otherwise you’ll have a lot of clicks from readers that were misled, that don’t amount to anything.

-Remember to use your relevant keywords in your ad title and description.  A big mistake is forgetting to do this, and then you have an ad that doesn’t seem to pertain to what a reader is currently surfing.  The whole point of Adwords is to hitch onto keywords on other sites for your ads.  Leaving those keywords out means that your ad is less likely to be noticed.

-Walk that fine line between clarity and keyword density.  Your keyword should be prevalent so that any searchers have no trouble running into your ad, but don’t overload your statements so that the keyword is senselessly repeated too many times.

-Always track your results, if one keyword set up isn’t working switch to a different one.  There’s no sense in continuing a campaign that hasn’t been fruitful.  That’s just beating a dead horse.  Instead, try different things if you’re not seeing the results you want.

Should you leave your freelance writing that you enjoy so much and take some regular and more paying job? Or should you look for alternative source of income?

What you will choose from the given options depends on what is your priority. For me, the choice is simple. I would go for developing the alternative source of income. And I believe most of the readers of this post will want to do the same. Therefore, I will be talking about alternative source of income that you could develop to increase your income.

1. You can start an AdSense or any advertisement supported website.
2. You can write an e-book.
3. You can start a coaching program.
4. Become a corporate blogging consultant.
5. Create a team of writer and get bulk content done.
6. Become a content consultant

Your options are not limited to these. You can do many more things while continuing your freelance writing.

My goal with this article is not to argue about utility of link finding. Well, this can be a worthy goal, and I might choose to write on it in the next article, but for now, the goal is to tell you how to write a good advertising copy. Let us being on that:

Why you want to communicate?

Asking this question will tell you why you want to advertise. This will tell you about the goal and the purpose of the ad you are going to write.

Whom are you writing for?

The answer to this question will help you find the right tone, vocabulary and message for the ad copy. The way you will communicate with a student will not be same, as you will communicate with business executives of the same age.

What the consumer wants?

This is another critical question. Always remember, no one buys products or its features. One buys benefits and solutions.

Have you touched her tonight?

Do not get me wrong. This heading was written in the fashion to stir emotional corner of your mind. Tell me one thing, using the comment box below, if I had used some bland heading like, “target emotion of the consumer not the reason,” would you have reacted?

We all are emotion-led people. No one understands data, if it lacks connectivity.

Can your house cleaner comprehend it?

If she can then anyone can. The idea is to keep the copy as simple as you can.

What reaction do you expect?

You should tell your readers what you expect from them, once they are through with the advertisement. Include call to action. If you do not to so, you should not expect the audience to do anything.

I am sure you must be budding with many ideas about the above discussion. Please use the comment box to share some of them with rest of us.

The only people making any money off this scam are the ones selling you their LIST. The other thing that happens when you get to their web site is that they collect your information and pretty soon you’ll get millions of advertisement emails from people wanting to:

• Give you a credit card (Read the fine print! There are usually exorbitant fees associated with these credit card offers!)
• Sell you insurance
• Sign you up for FREE stuff
• Get you to enter their contest

Again, what happens when you click on any of these so-called “Offers” is that somebody somewhere will try to collect your name, email address and phone # and any other information they can come by.

The other thing that happens though, and this is worse, is that they can covertly install spyware, Adware and other types of malicious software on your computer. Now you’ve got a whole new set of problems. You’ve got to purchase one of those anti-spyware programs to get all that junk off your computer.

But there are legitimate ways to earn a living online. More and more people and companies are realizing how easy it is to hire a “virtual assistant” or data entry person who can accomplish their tasks from anywhere in the world simply using their computer and the internet.

This may well be the future of mankind’s workforce. Who knows? It’s certainly catching on. But you must do your own research into these companies. And you must be wary of all the fakes that are out there. There will always be scammers and people looking to earn a quick, easy buck.

As with all of life, you get what you put into any project. Even online work is going to require hours and effort on your part in order to get that paycheck.