Pay Per Click Search Engines

Since the inception of Pay per Click search engines (PPC's) marketing on the internet has exploded. I know that you have seen those little ads that say sponsored links? On Google the ads are down the right hand side of the page. These are paid ads by the advertiser and when someone clicks on them then the Search Engine Company charges that advertiser a fee. The fee depends on how much the advertiser has bid on that keyword. Some keywords cost as little as .05 cents per click or as much as $50 dollars.

That means that every time someone clicks on an ad for that keyword the advertiser is charged .05 if that is what they bid. The highest bidder gets the number one ranking. Pretty simple stuff!

The beauty of PPC's is that you can get instant traffic. With Google it takes about 15 minutes for them to start showing the ad once it is approved. Literally, within that time frame you can have visitors to your site. If you are starting a brand new site or need to jumpstart an existing one then the PPC's are the way to go.

The two main PPC's are Google and Yahoo (previously Overture). These two search engines get the vast majority of online traffic. There are some smaller PPC's like Findwhat and Looksmart that are worth looking into. There are lots of times that you can get keywords much cheaper with these smaller search engines. Just remember that they do not get the majority of the traffic!

When starting a new site it is best to use the PPC's first to get instant traffic and start generating some income from the site. Then you can start implementing less expensive forms of marketing like reciprocal linking and viral marketing techniques that take more time to see results from. As your traffic grows from the less expensive strategies then you can lower the amount of money invested in PPC's.

You should always start buying traffic then move on to free traffic strategies. The PPC's are the best and most effective way to get immediate traffic. You need to learn how to bid on keywords before you start bidding though because it can get expensive and you can waste a lot of money.

An example:

Let's say you are selling a $35.00 e-book and your conversion factor is 2%. A conversion factor is the amount of sales you generate as a percentage of visitors. So 2% means that 2 out every 100 visitors actually buy your e-book or 1 in 50.

That means that for every 100 visitors we have $70.00 in gross sales. So to generate 100 visitors we can spend up to $70.00 to break even. That means that the most we can bid on a keyword is $.70 cents. If we bid $.25 then we make a PROFIT of $45.00 per 100 visitors.

Or,

Total Sales per 100 Visitors    $70.00
Advertising Cost per 100 Visitors    $25.00
(.25 cents per click)
Total Profit per 100 Visitors    $45.00

As you can see that in this example you make $45.00 per 100 visitors. So if you had 1000 visitors a day to your site you would make $450.00 per day clear profit! Not bad from your living room!!

Remember, if you are just starting out then use the PPC's first to get instant cash flow then start implementing your less expensive traffic generating strategies. The less expensive tactics like reciprocal linking and viral marketing take time for them to take full effect so the PPC's give you instant traffic while they are being implemented.

Utilize the PPC's the right way and they will generate you highly targeted traffic which means money in your pocket!

Yours in Success.