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No matter how great your products or how well-designed your web site, if no one ever sees them, you'll never sell anything. That's why you have to let people know you're there. According to Boris Mordkovich of http://AdWatcher.com, 'Search engine marketing is a way to expose your business to thousands of people who are searching for your products and services.'

One of the main types of search engine marketing is pay-per-click advertising. Internet users search for items using keywords and phrases, so you bid on which keywords you want your business' ads to show up for. When someone clicks on your ad, they're redirected to your web site, and you pay the search engine company a nominal fee.

Position Yourself for Profit
In most search engines, the highest bidder receives the top spot, so you can control where you want your ad to appear. Your goal is to be in the top three spots because the main search engines distribute those ads to their hundreds of thousands of partners.

Though the number one spot gets the most traffic, you may want to go after the second or third position ' research has shown they actually have higher conversion rates. Because buyers want options, they're not necessarily ready to commit to the first ad they check out; but they may be ready by the time they reach the second or third ad down.

3 Ways to Maximize Your Ad Campaign
You can take some simple steps to get the most out of your advertisements:

' Get Help Managing Your Bids.
Keeping up with daily changing bid prices, especially when you have numerous keywords, can be a daunting task. Google and Yahoo both have software programs to help you manage your bids, as does http://KeywordBidMaximizer.com. These programs can close bid gaps or adjust your bids automatically if a bidding war starts. They have a number of algorithms you can use to set the parameters of your bids.

' Promote Your Product on Related Web Sites.
The major search engines offer programs, such as Google's AdSense, that let you advertise on web sites pertinent to your product. These sites display your ads, and charge you a set fee every time their traffic clicks through to your store. However, you should monitor your performance results ' traffic coming from informational sites may not convert as well as traffic searching for your specific product.

' Target Your Ads.
For each keyword you bid on, write a separate ad, with copy focused around that word. Each ad should take the customer to the landing page that sells their particular item of interest, rather than redirecting them to your web site's homepage. Says Mordkovich, 'It's definitely more work in the short-term, but it will yield much better results.'