Search 101

Paid Search

In a Paid Search / Pay-Per-Click (PPC) agreement, the advertiser pays only for qualifying clicks to the destination site based on a prearranged per-click rate. Most search engines are employing PPC for at least some of their search results.

Paid Search is the only guaranteed way to secure a top placement on Google and Yahoo!. Within minutes of activating your PPC program, your ads will be viewed by tens of thousands of potential leads.

In simplistic terms, the more you are willing to pay per click, the higher on the page your ad will be shown. Some search engines such as Google reward customers who achieve high click through rates by ranking their ad higher than a competitor who is paying more money.

The most popular search engines which employ PPC for at least some of their results are Google, Yahoo!, and Bing.

The benefits of PPC are:

• Quick inclusion (within days or minutes)
• You can pay for a top position unlike in traditional SEO
• You can appear in several search engines with just one listing
• Easily track conversions (whether a searcher signs up for a newsletter, downloads a file, or makes purchase from your site)

The downsides of PPC:

• Often very costly
• It can be very time consuming to write ads, monitor ad positions, etc.
• You must continue to pay for placement -- when the campaign budget runs out, your ad is no longer displayed
• Far less traffic when compared to organic listings