Pay Per Click Advertising (Paid results)

Pay per click advertising (PPC) is a widely used form of paying for advertisements on the Internet. The idea of pay per click advertising was first introduced in 1998.

PPC advertising works like a silent auction. Advertisers place bids on keywords or phrases that they think their target audience would type in a search field when they are looking for specific goods or services. When a web user types a search query into the field of a search engine that matches the advertiser’s keyword list or visits a web page with content that correlates to the keywords or phrases chosen by the advertiser, the PPC ad may be displayed on the page. In search engines, a PPC ad is generally just above or to the right of the search results where they can be easily seen.

The other form of pay per click advertising is called content match. When people create private content driven websites, they can choose to participate in programs that allow ads to run on their pages. They usually are reimbursed on a pay per click basis too, though they only make a percentage of the total the advertiser pays. Search engines look for ads that will match content on private sites, so that people interested in the content would also be the most likely customers for any ads shown.

If you’re interested in pay per click advertising for your website you’ll find varied programs on most major search engines. It’s important to note that your site may not be among the first sites shown when a person uses a search engine to look for something. Many search engines rank pages and will still choose what they consider the best pages in their sponsored results. Though pay per click advertising may not cost you anything if no one is clicking on your ad, it also doesn’t bring you business if no one visits your site.