Pay Per Click Advertising

How I summarise pay-per-click advertising:

PPC search engine internet marketing is about using the power of pay per click advertising - Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing (formerly Overture) etc. - to generate cheap, targeted traffic to your website. And this free article shows you how to get going with pay per click search engines, example pay per click management tools and more.

Pay Per Click Advertising

Introduction to pay per click advertising

Pay per click advertising started with Overture (formerly called Goto and now called Yahoo! Search Marketing). But it didn't really take off until search engine heavyweight Google got involved with Google Adwords. It's reported that Google makes billions each year through its pay per click program and that internet advertising in 2006 is set to overtake more traditional forms of advertising.

When you consider that this is more or less the first form of marketing where you can actually measure results in real-time (more or less), then you know that advertising has changed forever and you need to get involved. Pay per click marketing is not going away!

And that's simply because pay-per-click search engines offer the promise of guaranteed visitors for the keywords of your choice! (All you have to do is convert!)

Choose to use pay per click advertising wisely!

There are literally hundreds of pay per click search engines available for you to spend your money. I suggest you only bother with the few I mention on this page to begin with. They provide guaranteed traffic and reduce so-called click-fraud (especially (Yahoo Search Marketing aka Overture and Google Adwords)

Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture)

Yahoo Search Marketing (formerly Overture) is the original pay per click advertising program. However, its popularity as a marketing tool has probably been surpassed by the superior Google Adwords product.

Yahoo! Search Marketing is also one of the most expensive, and competitive. A quotation taken from their sign-up page:

"A $50 initial deposit is non-refundable and will be applied
to click-throughs or to the minimum monthly spend. Each
account has a $20 minimum monthly spend. There is a
minimum bid requirement of $0.10 per click-through."

Like Google Adwords, it has tough anti-fraud measures in place - always evolving, obviously - so there is far less chance of receiving so called 'bogus clicks' than when using other pay-per-click search engines. Similarly the best pay per click management tools work with it, helping you save time and money.

And Yahoo! Search Marketing has an impressive search engine reach, with its results found in 'Sponsored Listings' in many search engines.

Verdict: If you are serious about generating targeted traffic to your site, but less bothered about minimum (or maximum!) bid amounts etc. then you should consider signing-up with Yahoo! Search Marketing.

Google AdWords

Google popularised ppc search engine internet marketing with Google Adwords. AdWords ads appear on the Google search engine itself, as part of the search engine listings (right-hand-side), as well as on other search engines (known as Search Network) and other content sites (known as Content Network - e.g. How I Promote My Website!)

Unlike other programs, Google AdWords doesn't always list the highest bidded term first (see 'the basics of bidding on pay per click' below for details). In Google's words:

"Getting great results in AdWords doesn't necessarily
mean spending a lot either. The AdWords system
rewards the best-performing ads."

Verdict: Definitely consider signing-up to Google AdWords,but learn how to make the most of your Adwords campaign first via a suitable tutorial or learning resource first!

Google AdWords

Miva

Miva (formerly Espotting and Findwhat) is the self-proclaimed number one pay per click search engine in Europe. Its results appear on many major search engines as well as thousands of relevant smaller sites too.

Verdict: A serious contender in Europe, worth considering.

Miva

More Pay Per Click Advertising Programs

There are other pay per click advertising opportunities worth considering. All of the pay per click search engines listed below have considerable reach, and can guarantee visitors to your site (often at a much cheaper cost Yahoo! or Adwords.).

• 
  Enhance Interactive
  
  
• Go Click

The basics of bidding on 'pay per click'

Using Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture) as an example here, making a bid is simply a matter of choosing the following:

* K e y w o r d
* T i t l e
* D e s c r i p t i o n

And as Yahoo Search Marketing recommends on its site, always repeat the keyword in both the title and description to improve your chances of a click. Yahoo! Search Marketing also comes with a keyword suggestion tool.

Choose your keywords wisely

Choosing your keywords, and the amount you are willing to bid is also simple, but can take a lot of time.

This is because you need to research suitable in-demand keywords, that cost little. Solutions to this problem include using the paid-for version of Wordtracker - this excellent keyword suggestion tool allows you to brainstorm good keywords, and determine the current cost of the top 20 bids. You might also want to use bid management software.

Find more pay-per-click search engine tools, including Wordtracker, and keyword generation resources at pay per click advertising tools

Make sure you don't spend too much money.

Clicks can add up quickly. It's probably worth investing in some kind of pay per click management software, or at least worth using the built-in pay per click tools provided by search engines like Yahoo! Search Marketing and Adwords.

Remember, you ONLY want your prospective customers to click. And you must know the value of your visitor!

The best way to achieve success at the pay-per-click search engines is to bid on many listings, but bid low...

Pay per click bid management

Unless you are a huge company, you will want to bid low and bid often. And this may mean you need to utilise the services of a pay-per-click bid management program, to optimise your efforts.

There are many such bid management tools, and I suggest you take a look at the example given below to see how well it suits your needs (or compares to another pay per click management software)

- Example of bid management software for Overture (Yahoo! Search Marketing)

Professional search engine marketing firms

Keyword research, writing good pay per click advertisements, bid management... - if it's all sounding like too much hard work, then that's where a professional search engine marketing firm comes in. But beware! Always look for client testimonials. Always look to see if they use pay per click advertising themselves. And always see if they will offer some free information first (that proves they know what they're talking about).

I'd also encourage you to seek out qualified professionals, too. For example, Google runs an Adwords Professionals program that requires its professionals have a minimum number of clients, a minimum spend, and to have passed a written exam.

One such search engine marketing firm that I can recommend (for Google Adwords, as well as search engine optimization marketing in general would be 22M, run by Jackie Hole). I can vouch for her adwords training and Adwords consultancy services as I have used them, and she is a Google Qualified Adwords Consultant.

You can do this yourself and become a professional -- I have some further learning resources below -- or you can simply hire the services of a professional. But I politely suggest you do one or the other. PPC search engine internet marketing is here to stay! Even experts in search engine optimization use pay per click! Remember that.

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To learn more about pay per click advertising see the Recommended section above, for a list of hand-picked resources.

Reminder: This page is about using pay per click advertising to promote your website -- please rate this page