Pay Per Click

Pay-per-click advertising, also known as PPC, is a form of online advertising whereby visitors are directed to an advertiser’s website after clicking on an advertisement, and the advertiser pays for each visitor on a per-click basis.

Each click can be anywhere from 1 pence to several pounds in cost, depending on many factors, including the pay-per-click search engine being used to advertise on, and the search phrase that is being targeted.

Perhaps the best example of pay-per-click advertising is Google’s PPC advertising called Google AdWords. In the screengrab of a Google search results page below, the PPC results have a red box around them.

Google Adwords, in a nutshell, works like this; when a Google search engine user types in an applicable search phrase for your business and you are bidding on that search phrase your text ad has a chance to be displayed. You are only charged when the search engine user clicks on your text ad, hence the name pay-per-click.

Successful PPC is made up of these main factors:

• Bidding on a sufficiently large number of relevant search phrases.
• Bidding enough for each search phrase so that your text ad appears where it will be seen (for brand awareness) and clicked (to send the search engine user to your web site).
• Constructing the campaign so it is very targeted.
• Providing very relevant information for the searchers who click on your text ads.
• Careful measurement and testing of results.