Marketers typically break search marketing into three major pieces:

* Price (How much you’re willing to spend each time a customer clicks on your ad)

* Positioning (Where visitors will see you ad when it’s displayed)

* Phrase (The keywords and phrases that will get your ad displayed among the results)

You might want to consider adding another part to the mix though:

LANDING PAGE

I’m talking about landing pages today - the place visitors land when they’ve clicked on your pay per click ad. You DO have landing pages, right? You don't just let potential clients land on your home page, do you?

Companies spend outrageous amounts of time and money searching for the right combination of terms and phrases for their PPC ad campaigns; monitoring and subtracting/adding new keywords and phrases as time goes on.

The problem is, many companies are sending EVERY person who clicks on an ad to either one landing page, or, even worse, their home page.

The problem with this is that search engine users are typically looking for specific things like “Louis Vitton Sweater” or “iBook Charger Cable”. People who search with these specific terms don’t want to waste their time on your home page - they want to be sent to the specific content they’re looking for. In your case, it could be about your seller services or your buyer services - or whatever you're offering.

In an effective search campaign, you should be modifying your keywords when a searcher is in the “sales lane.” People who search for terms like “Buy a home in Clayton, NC” are much more ready to buy than people searching for “Clayton, NC.” The pages these two searcher see could spell the difference between a sale and setting sail.

Simple things like lowering the number of clicks from your landing page to your conversion page and conversion-optimized landing pages designed specifically for searchers can bring your conversion the front of the sales process - while still allowing visitors to browse your site. Don’t sacrifice time spent on keyword research, and budget, but do spend more time on the fourth piece of the pie: Landing Pages.