These days, more and more businesses are turning to Internet marketing as a way of promoting their products. Pay Per Click is one of the most popular online marketing methods and is often chosen by small firms because they have a wide variety of tools to target clients precisely. You advertise your products to the people who are most likely to be interested in buying them.

Are you new to this field? In this case, you have come to the right place because I will show you the rules a small business should follow in order to have more effective PPC campaigns.

1. Geographic Targeting – Not too Narrow, Not too Broad

Google AdWords offers you the chance to set a geographic range where your ads will be displayed. It’s great for local businesses, but some of us tend to set too strict limitations. For instance, if you are selling within a range of one mile, don’t put this number in Google AdWords because it is not that precise.

So, if you’d insert the one mile value, Google will get confused. Insert a higher range such as ten miles. This applies to ranges that are smaller than five miles. On the other hand, don’t go to the other extreme. Many people target the whole state when in fact they are interested in two cities at most. You are just wasting money and time. It won’t work like this.

2. Change Google’s Default Settings

If you’ve had those settings for a while and you see no results, it’s time to change things around. Let’s face it; default settings aren’t there to help you. They’re set to help Google although in the process they may work for you too. But if they don’t suit you, change them. There’s a reason why you are allowed to do this and I am talking about increasing your efficiency. For instance, you can opt out from the content network. Many users reach this conclusion and discover it was for the best. That content network doesn’t suit everybody.

3. Have Several Campaigns and Enough Ads in Each Group

Some of your keywords may need different geographic targeting and different budgets. You won’t be able to do that unless you start different campaigns. When it comes to ad groups however, there is one thing you need to remember: place enough ads in one ad group. It can be a daunting task to write targeted ads for each of your groups and it’s not helpful either. If you already know what sells, why write more than one ad per group?

Daniel Ruyter co-founded Alpha Tree Marketing in 2011 – a firm that specializes in PPC campaign management for small to medium sized businesses.