Definition of Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising

With Pay Per Click advertising (commonly referred to as PPC), your ad generally appears in the following format:

Example 1:
(Title)                Review PPC search engines
(Description)    Compare the top pay per click search engines.
                         Read full reviews and receive free sign-up credits.
(Domain)           www.ppccompass.com

Example 2:
(Title)               Buy discounted name brand shoes
(Description)   The internet’s largest supply of shoes, boots, socks,
                         insoles, and cleaners. Find any name brand, any style,
                         any size, and any color.
(Domain)          www.shoewarehouse.net

   You choose keywords (terms) that are relevant to your website and write the appropriate title and description for that keyword (as shown above). Your listing/ad will be distributed to the distribution partners of the company that you are working with. Distribution Partner is the name give to the search engines that the PPC company has contracts with, this is where your listing will appear. Your listing appears when someone searches for one of your keywords (the ones that you have already selected). If someone clicks onto your ad they will be directed to your site and you will be charged the amount that you are bidding. The rank that your ad will appear on the search engine is determined by your bid amount (ie: if the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place bids are $0.23, $0.22, and $0.17 (respectively) you would need to pay $0.24 per clickthrough to be in first place or $0.18 to be in third). If you match another bidder’s bid price, you will be placed lower than them (with the same example above, you will be in 2nd place if you bid $0.23 and 3rd place if you bid $0.22 (note that you will be in 3rd place if you bid any amount between $0.18-$0.22)).
   It takes time to learn what keywords will work best for your website. The process takes time, but a couple of things to keep in mind are: The more specific the better. Keep it simple. See things as your client does, which means using search terms that they would search for (and of course remember that clients in general are usually dumb).
  To give you an idea, here are a few keywords that would be used for this website, and some that shouldn’t be used:

Yes: pay per click advertising, ppc search engine, review pay per click companies, yahoo search marketing, overture, enhance interactive, goclick, 7search, seven search, 7 search, etc.

No: pay per click compass (if people know this much, they’d just type it in), compass (eventhough it’s part of the name, no one looking for a compass want to come here), yahoo! (rarely do common internet users ever use the exclamation point with yahoo’s name), advertising (too general), search engines (too general), enhance interactive pay per click search engine (too specific), etc.

Now that you've got the definition down, you better learn how to do it right. Visit our Tips for Success page.