Search Engine Optimzation
Pay Per Click Explained...
Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns are integral to Search Engine Marketing (SEM).
PPC is a program in which advertisers pay the search engine some money for letting their advertisement appear on their SERP (Search Engine Return Page) for a relevant search term. One of the advantages of PPC is that while your advertisement appears on the search engine’s pages, you pay them only if someone clicks on the advertisement; not merely views it. SEM and PPC in particular is one of the fastest methods of promoting your website. Typically, PPC is part of the overall SEO strategy. While the site is gradually getting ranked in the search engines using SEO techniques, PPC is used to give a quick boost to its popularity.
A few of the major players in the PPC market include:
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Platform
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Details
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Google AdWords
(http://adwords.Google.com)
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Offers the widest reach and the largest number of impressions of all the platforms (boasts
80% of the entire global search audience). Extends its reach with the Google AdSense
platform.
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Yahoo! Search Marketing
(http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com)
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Offers similar (albeit fewer) features as Google AdWords. Boasts 53 million daily unique
searches and 2.8 billion monthly searches. Supports its own content network.
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Microsoft adCenter
(http://adCenter.microsoft.com)
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Offers similar features as Yahoo! Search Marketing and Google AdWords. Ads appear on
their own content network, including MSN, MSNBC, the Wall Street Journal, and Fox
Sports.
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Ask.com Sponsored Listings
(http://sponsoredlistings.ask.com)
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Provides a large ad distribution network reaching more than 73 million unique users.
Has a partnership to show AdWords ads on Ask.com in addition to its own PPC network.
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Miva
(http://miva.com)
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Offers two PPC networks: core and precision. Targets verticals across myriad content sites.
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7Search
(http://7search.com)
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Partners with many lesser-known search engines.
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Kanoodle
(http://kanoodle.com)
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Provides many tools, including those for ad scheduling and contextual ads.
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[Source: O’Reilly – SEO Warrior, 2009]
Some Benefits of PPC Advertising
• Fast results
• You can focus on region wise target audience
• You have control over budgets
Disadvantages include:
• For competitive keywords, the budgets need to be higher
• You have to constantly monitor the response, and alter ad wordings
• There is no 100 % control over ‘click fraud’ – wherein people with malicious intent repeatedly click your ad.
The bottom line is that Pay per Click gives fast results, but it works best only for short term website promotion.
