One way to ensure that your traffic that comes in via local pay per click is very targeted is to use negative keywords. What are negative keywords? They are keywords that you don´t want your ads to show up for.

Let´s say you sell hope chests. You don´t want your ad coming up when someone types in something like “bodybuilding techniques for a big chest”, so you would need to select keywords that would show up in that phrase but wouldn´t be applicable to your business. These would be entered as negative keywords.

To find which keywords should be used, it´s useful to use a service like Wordtracker or Google´s Adwords tool to find similar or related phrases that come up with your keywords. This will let you know what people are searching for with your keywords in it. Take any irrelevant keywords and use them as your negative keywords in the local pay per click campaign. This will help ensure that your ads don´t even appear for non-relevant local advertising searches.

Negative keywords are a great way to avoid paying too much for your local pay per click campaigns. Research carefully and choose the words that are most likely to send you poor traffic and make sure you don´t end up paying for too many of those types of clicks!

One way to boost targeted traffic is to ensure that your keywords stand out. You can do this in Google AdWords by using the following code when typing your headline:

{KeyWord: }

Enter your keywords after the colon, leaving a single space. This will cause Google to highlight your keywords when someone is searching for them and you will automatically draw a higher level of interested traffic to your site. Make sure that you use the description lines to describe exactly what you are offering so no one who isn´t interested will accidentally click. This will save you wasted money and ensure a better quality of traffic.

This is a super simple trick that any local pay per click advertiser can use on Google Adwords, so go ahead and try it, track your results and see how much better it works!

Basically, university students from all parts of the globe will be divided into teams and each team will receive online vouchers worth $200 to use on Google´s AdWords. The teams then have to work with a small local business (fewer than 100 employees) to create a local pay per click campaign that will run for 3 weeks and cannot exceed the $200. Student teams have to write up two reports, one at the beginning of the three weeks, outlining strategy, etc. and another at the end which will deal with the results achieved.

The prize? A trip to Google headquarters and a meeting with the team that actually came up with one of the most popular local pay per click programs, AdWords. At the end of the campaign, each small business will receive recommendations based on the gathered data to help them proceed successfully. This is a great opportunity for small businesses around the world to learn more about local pay per click, as well as giving marketing students a chance at some great online experience in the world of local pay per click.

Choose the right keywords. This is very important. The most popular keywords will have lots of competition and you´ll end up paying big money just to get a decent place on the list. You´re better off choosing more targeted keywords and local pay per click phrases, which have little competition. Often these can be bought for as little as five or ten cents a click.

Write great ad copy. You only have two or three lines to get your message across, so make them good! While Google AdWords have very limited space, you may have to cut yourself off with other local pay per click programs. The shorter the better, people don´t spend much time reading ads, so it has to grab them quickly. Use your keywords in the copy for added benefits.

Offer something. A free ebook, report or quote is a great way to get people to click on your local pay per click ad. But don´t give them the runaround or you´ll be paying for useless clicks. Make sure the ad landing page gives them just what you promised or they´ll be gone in seconds.

Test more than one ad. There´s no reason to limit yourself to just one ad. Try two or three different versions and track them to see which performs best. Then rework your ads to reflect the qualities that make them more clickable. You can literally see the results in 24 hours, so this is a very rewarding use of local pay per click.

Local pay per click can be a great way to boost sales and get more traffic to your site. With the techniques outlined above, you can make sure you get fast results, without paying through the teeth.

Keep your bid low. It may be tempting to get into a bidding war with the competition, but you will just end up spending more cash. If necessary, look for new local pay per click keywords to use.

Only use local pay per click advertising for worthy products. If you are selling very low-priced products, for just a dollar or two, make sure it´s worth your while to actually advertise them this way.

Figure out your conversion rate. How many visitors to your website equals a sale? That should be the main factor in setting your local pay per click bid. For example, if it takes 200 visitors to get one sale that gives you $30 profit, you don´t want to pay over 30 cents per click or you will be paying more than your product is worth.

Test different ads and keywords. Obviously, the higher the conversion rate, the more money you make, so it pays to find the best converting ads and keywords and use them often.

Using these tips will help you save money, but it is always a good idea to set a local pay per click advertising budget ahead of time and make sure you stick to it. That way, you´ll be sure not to overspend.