Pay Per Click Advertising
The results that appear first or on the right on Yahoo and Google are sponsored links. Anyone can appear anywhere they want on these lists - it comes down to how big your wallet is. This type of advertising is effective in its own way, but the cost over effective SEO is sometimes clearly not the best choice. Eye studies have concluded that this is not the best position for your listing either let alone your pocket book.

What is Pay Per Click Advertising?
Pay Per Click (also known as Pay Per Ranking, Pay Per Placement or Pay Per Position) enables you to list your site at the top of the search engine results by advertising on keywords that best describe your product or service. It is a dynamic marketplace, the higher you bid, the higher your advertisement will be displayed in the list.

You pay only when a searcher or clicker clicks on your listing and connects to your site. You don't pay to list, you only pay for clicks or click throughs. This way you only pay for the traffic to your site, there are no other hidden costs.

Pay Per Click is now not only available on search engines. Publishers can also include PPC advertisements on their sites.

Is it a smart idea?
An account with a PPC search engine is a great way to drive targeted traffic to your site because you only pay for actual clicks to your site. It allows you to get maximum exposure, while you control the amount you want to spend on your marketing campaign. There are no risks and you can clearly track the effectiveness of your ad campaign.

What do I need to watch for?
Advertisers need to be wary of PPC search engines that offer clickers money or incentives to click through their results. Our advice is to steer clear of these search engines or programs as the clicks you pay for may not be the best quality.  

Which Search Engines Allow Pay Per Click Advertising?

There are hundreds of pay per click search engines. Generally, the larger the pay per click search engine, the more you will have to bid to get to the top for your keywords. This is why it is worth investigating different search engines to find what it would cost to bid on your keywords and how much traffic they draw.

The largest companies in the pay per click industry are Yahoo! and Google . Google is not a pay per click search engine, but it does provide pay per click advertising in text ad boxes to the right of search results it delivers. It also delivers pay per click ads to other content sites.

In addition to the general pay per click search engines, you may also be able to find thematic search engines that serve your industry or specifically cater to your target audience.

What is Important to Consider?

A very important point to keep in mind with pay per click is you must test, test, and test some more. Don't start off with a major investment. Start with the minimum and see how the search engine performs in terms of the traffic it delivers and how well that traffic converts into paying customers.
                            An essential part of your testing is having a method in place that allows you to track your return on money invested.
                           For example, if your goal is to bring in new subscribers to your newsletter, you could direct visitors arriving from your pay per click link to a subscription form set up just for them. You can then monitor how many clicks actually result in a new subscription. As such, you will know how much you are paying for each new subscriber.

Before spending any money with a pay per click search engine, be sure they can answer the following questions:

• How many searches a month are performed at the search engine?
• What major search partners or affiliates does the search engine have?
• How many searches are generated each month by the search partners or affiliates?
• Is it possible to opt out of having your listing appear in the results of the affiliate sites?
• What fraud prevention mechanisms are in place?
• What is the procedure for filing a "fraudulent clicks" report?
• Will an account be credited for fraudulent clicks discovered?
• Is it possible to opt out of having a listing appear for searches originating from specific countries?
• Is there a posted terms of service for search partners or affiliates. Look for search engines that have very strict guidelines for dealing with their search affiliates. This is important because you want to be sure the search engine is working hard to prevent fraud among its affiliates.

What are the limitations?

Of course, there are limitations to this type of advertising. New bids can lower the positions of other firms, and many will react by raising their bid to regain a previous ranking. Monitoring of positions becomes crucial. These campaigns can also become prohibitively expensive, depending on the competitiveness of the keyword phrases and the aggressiveness of the competition. In addition, many of the "savvier" search engine users have learned to recognize PPC results as paid advertising and bypass them without consideration.

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