Pay Per Click (PPC)

Pay-per-click, or PPC, is an advertising technique used on Web sites, advertising networks, and search engines.

With search engines, pay-per-click advertisements are usually text ads placed near search results; when a site visitor clicks on the advertisement, the advertiser is charged a small amount. Variants include pay for placement and pay for ranking. Pay-per-click is also sometimes known as Cost per Click (CPC).

While many companies exist in this space, Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing, which was formerly Overture, are the largest network operators as of 2006. MSN has started beta testing with their own PPC services MSN adCenter.

Depending on the search engine, minimum prices per click start at US$0.01 (up to US$2.00). Very popular search terms can cost much more on popular engines. Abuse of the pay-per-click model can result in click fraud.

As of 2005, notable PPC Keyword search engines include: Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, GaZabo.com, Miva, which was formerly FindWhat, SearchFeed, Enhance (formerly Ah-Ha), GoClick, 7Search, Kanoodle, ePilot, Search123, Kazazz, Pricethat, Search FAST and others.

An industry of professional services firms that can assist advertisers in marketing their products and services on search engines has also developed. Many of these firms will be members of various trade bodies such as IABUK, SMA-UK and SEMPO, while other reputable firms have chosen to avoid these bodies, as many of them remain heavily biased toward the firms that first got together and founded them.

This technique is very much like an auction and is sometimes called “Click Wars”. When setting up a CPC campaign it is VERY important to understand that you can be out bid and your cost per click can increase which will result in depleting your daily budget, driving down your click through rate as we all know reduces the amount of your daily visitors, thus reducing your overall sales.

A CPC campaign does NOT guarantee you a spot on the search results. If your campaign has been outbid, your ad can come up in second place or not at all. If this is the case, you have a few choices such as increasing your monthly budget or optimize your Web site to increase your quality score.

PPC engines can be categorized in "Keyword", "Product", "Service" engines. However, a number of companies may fall in two or more categories. More models are continually being developed. Currently, pay-per-click programs do not generate any revenue from site traffic to The Wright Approach to SEO & SEM, Trademarked 2006 Page 35 of 61 sites using these programs. Only when visitors click on banner advertisements or pop-ups is revenue generated. We are going to focus on “Keyword CPC” SEO marketing.

Search engine marketing is a product where the search engine company charges fees related to inclusion of Web sites in their search index. Paid inclusion products are provided by most search engine companies such as Yahoo!, Google and Ask.

The fee structure is usually based on a bidding system similar to eBay.com. A user signs in and applies keywords to ads that have been created by the user. You then set your maximum bid and for each ad group you create which will ensure you are placed at the top of each search results page. This is the part the most people have been making there mistakes while using a PPC system such as Google AdWords and Yahoo Marketing.