There are many Pay-Per-Click (PPC) search engines. The biggest in the
business are Google and Overture, but it is worthwhile checking some of
the smaller (and cheaper) players as well. Some of these are:
- GoClick
- Findwhat (www.findwhat.com)
- Ah-ha.com
- Kanoodle (www.kanoodle.com)
- Enhance Interactive (www.enhance.com)
- LookSmart (www.looksmart.com)
- Espotting (for the U.K. and Europe) (www.espotting.com)
The basic idea of Pay-Per-Click advertising is that you bid for a
keyword that you wish to target, and your advertisement is placed
according to how much you bid in relation to your competitors' bids.
In other words, the more you bid in relation to other advertisers'
bids, the further up the page your ad will appear. Depending upon which
search engine you are using, the bidding can start at $0.01 per click, but
generally is more likely to start at about $0.05, as is the case with
Google.
It is wise to be as specific as you can when targeting your market with
PPC ads. If your online sales involve gardening supplies, rather than
using the keyword "gardening supplies", be specific (targeted) and
advertise (for example) "lawn mowers", or "grass seed" or "fertilizer". If
you take this approach, you will be attracting someone who has
specifically been searching for this product, and they will be a more
targeted prospect.
So use one ad for one product. This will involve having many ads going
at once, but you will find that the targeted traffic that is attracted
will be worth the little extra effort. Of course, make sure that the
prospect is taken to the appropriate page of your website when they click
on your ad. Someone looking for lawnmowers doesn't want to go to the
fertilizer page.
Some Pay-Per-Click search engines will allow different keyword options so that you
can structure your keywords in such a way that various search results
occur. It would be best to read the information that is available on their
websites. For instance, if you access the Google Adwords site, you will
find a section that deals with the different keyword options that are
available, and explains them in great detail. Go to:
https://adwords.google.com/select/tools.html
It is worthwhile familiarising yourself with this information if you
are serious about PPC advertising.
If you only want your advertisement to be seen in a specific
geographical location, then Google and Overture will enable you to do
this.
The most attractive aspect of PPC advertising is the fact that you can
be attracting traffic to your website in a matter of minutes from when you
placed your ad. The instant nature of this targeted advertising has
resulted in PPC becoming one of the growth areas of online advertising.
Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
Explained
