pay per click management, pay per click program, website traffic

One misunderstood concept when it comes to the Internet and web based marketing is PPC (short for Pay Per Click). What exactly is PPC, how can it benefit your company and what is involved in initiating a PPC program for your web site?

Search engines are the key component to PPC and they’ve been running variations on a pay per click program since Yahoo! first popularized the feature in 1998. While Yahoo! continues to be a significant player in the PPC market, there are now two other giants: Google AdWords and Microsoft AdCenter. Of course, all of these companies control either popular search engines or web portals (in some cases, both) and that’s the key; each of these companies provide a web site from which a visitor is likely to initiate a search for a specific product or service.

Pay per click is a revenue-generating feature that gives Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! and others the ability to sell prominent placement to companies for specific popular key words or phrases that potential customers are likely to use. The sponsoring company is charged a fee every time a visitor clicks on the link that would send them to that company’s web site.  It sounds a little confusing -after all, aren’t search results supposed to be free of manipulation?

The short answer is yes, but an example is probably the best way to illustrate the concept. If you search for “Cars” on Google, you’ll pull up a search results page that lists over 100 million hits.  The most popular links are at the top of the page of course, and results will include everything from Wikipedia entries to the Pixar movie. You’ll notice a “Sponsored Links” section on the results page and that’s where PPC comes in. The links that show up under this section are paid placements from companies that believe someone searching for “Cars” might be interested in buying their product. They’re willing to pay Google for the right to have their link prominently displayed where you might click it and visit their site; you’re likely to see links for car dealerships, online car auctions, car parts stores and related retailers.

Key words and phrases are typically sold to advertisers by bidding and there’s a real science to determining how much a click is worth. Employing a company that specializes in researching key words and phrases helps avoid bidding too much for a search that may yield visitors but not paying customers.

Done correctly, PPC can pay off handsomely.