Pay Per Click - What Exactly Is PPC Advertising?

By Tracey Edwards

Not long ago, the only acceptable method for advertising online was through banner advertising. Those rectangle bars at the top of the page (usually flashing at you to 'click here') where the bane of most web surfers. We've come a long way since then and while banner ad's are still around, the biggest change is that most companies now use Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC) instead.

PPC Advertising is basically how it sounds. The company has to pay anytime someone clicks on their ads. If no-one clicks (no matter how many times the ad is shown) they don't have to pay.

The two major PPC ad engines are Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing (formerly Overture). Both display ads according to what people are searching for. So if someone is looking for dating tips, only ads that are relevant to the term 'dating tips' will show up. This way only relevant ads are shown to potential customers.

The reason that is most popular with businesses is that you only have to pay for people that come to your website (that have clicked on your ad). So essentially it is up to you to try and convert that visitor into a customer. It also means that the people that are visiting your site are TARGETED. They clicked on your ad because they were interested in what it said.

It's also very easy to set up. In fact if you are already registered with Google Adwords or Yahoo Search Marketing it's possible to have an ad campaign up and running in as little as 10 minutes and receiving traffic not much after that.

Of course the best thing about PPC Advertising is that you are in control of the advertising process. You can set which keywords that your ad will display for, and how much you want to spend per click on those keywords. You can even set a maximum budget per day. Then once your campaign is up and running you can see which ads that your visitors are clicking on, or which keywords work best with your ads.