Internet advertising, such as Google’s Pay-Per-Click program (also called “Adwords”) has garnered so much attention over the last few years, that many small and mid-sized businesses have started thinking of it as a “must have” for internet marketing.

It’s not.

However, PPC is a great way to completely blow your advertising budget and get nothing in return. If you don’t understand PPC, it will eat your lunch.

I first saw the potential $$ damage of PPC advertising when I started taking screenshoots of Google Adsense Ads in a particular niche that I wanted to enter. I noticed that every 2-3 weeks 95% of the businesses that were advertising in the niche stopped advertising - to be replaced by another group of advertisers who again, only lasted a few weeks. If they were making money with Google’s system, they would not have quit using it, correct?

The companies were essentially burning through their PPC budget, not making money, and then quitting. The unfortunate part (for me at least) is that they were driving up the cost of a click. It’s hard to compete with someone willing to spend $2 - $3 dollars on a worthless click.

That being said, however:

Adwords can help you create a phenomenal income stream and a hugely successful advertising campaign. But you have to set it up correctly.

Here are the top mistakes that I see companies make and what I insist they correct so that they don’t waste their ad budget.

1) Poor or No Search Engine Optimization. Look - when your website shows up in Google or Yahoo’s search results, and someone clicks on the link, you have just gotten a “free” click. Now, many small businesses complain and tell me that it is impossible to rank highly for some terms. Often that’s true, often it’s not. Regardless, being optimized for PPC keywords can not only get you some free clicks but also save you money on your adwords campaigns.

2) No Analytics or Tracking Program. Google Analytics is free. It takes moments to install on your website and it gives you tons and tons of information.

Do you know what keyword gives you the most traffic? Do you know what source brings you the most traffic? Do you know what your “long tail” keywords are? That is, the 80% of all search traffic that is unique and largely does not fit into your seemingly “most important” keyword phrase. Do you know which pages on your website get the most traffic? NO? Then, you’re not ready to maximize a pay-per-click campaign.

Plus, when you start using Adwords, you will want to measure and track each each click and its result for you. Did you get the sale or email sign-up? How many? How often? Which of your successes is due directly to your campaign and which was due to other factors such as natural search results? To make the most of a pay-per-click campaign you need analytics.

3) No Landing Page Testing. Here’s the big one: If you have not tested your landing page (the page that your visitor will reach after clicking), then you are likely burning money. If you are going to pay to send a visitor to a webpage, you want to make sure that you will get a specific result from it.

How do you know that your landing page is working? Are the colors inviting? Is the headline correct? Do you have the correct visual elements and sales copy? The only way to know for sure is to test, test, test, TEST.

Get a google account, sign up for the website optimizer and test versions of your landing page against each other. At minimum, test different headlines. That is, keep the entire page the same and change only the headline. If headline “A” creates more sales or conversions than headline “B,” then you have a winner. You can then move on to testing another element, perhaps you will want to add some graphics. Here are a few example of increasing landing page sales using google website optimizer.

Are you starting to get the picture? If you do your homework, or if you are qualified to work with me, and I do it with you, then you will begin your PPC campaign with all the right tools for massive success:

1) A webpage that is SEO’d to bring in free traffic and save you money on your clicks.

3) A landing page already optimized to make sales.

Now, you are ready to make money with Google Adwords.