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Content:
What is PPC?
Pay-Per-Click is a paid form of advertising, popularized mostly by the "search engine" GoTo (now called Overture). The concept is fairly simple. Businesses bid to be placed at or near the top of the search results for particular keyword phrases. The bidding is done on a "per-click" basis, meaning that a company pays a specific amount every time the engine sends them a visitor. In addition, the top results on Overture also show up in the results of many of the popular search engines (usually listed as "sponsored" or "featured" results). Google has also recently come up with a similar version of PPC (AdWords Select) that has taken over some of the engines that used to display Overture results (most notably AOL Search).
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Advantages
Pay-Per-Click campaigns have some advantages over traditional search engine optimization. First of all, they require no changes to a current site's content or look to obtain top positions, just a willingness to pay. Also, the implementation of a pay-per-click campaign is relatively quick- it can take just a few minutes to start getting targeted traffic, versus sometimes months for standard SEO campaigns. Finally, unlike search engine optimization, the implementation of a PPC campaign is relatively easy and does not necessarily require any specialized knowledge (although experience with search engine marketing and keyword research is a definite advantage).
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Limitations
Of course, there are limitations to this type of advertising. New bids can lower the positions of other firms, and many will react by raising their bid to regain a previous ranking. Monitoring of positions becomes crucial. These campaigns can also become prohibitively expensive, depending on the competitiveness of the keyword phrases and the aggressiveness of the competition. In addition, many of the "savvier" search engine users have learned to recognize PPC results as paid advertising and bypass them without consideration.
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Determining Visitor Worth
Determining how much each website visitor is worth is vital to the success of a pay-per-click campaign. If it costs $50 in click-throughs to make a $40 sale, the campaign has failed. The formula is relatively simple, but some specific historical data is necessary. In the most rudimentary form, it is the profit from the website over a given period divided by the number of total visitors for the same period. If a site netted $1000 in profits from goods or services in a given period, and there were 2,000 visitors during the same period, each would theoretically be worth 50 cents (profit divided by visitors). But this is only the breakeven point. Depending on the desired profit margin, the optimal price to pay per click would probably be something much less than 50 cents. Popular keyword phrases can often run more than this, so it then makes sense to bid less money on less popular terms to pay an acceptable amount per visitor.
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Selecting Keyphrases
As with typical search engine optimization, keyword research is critical to the success of a PPC campaign. Unlike typical search engine optimization, there aren't practical limits on the number of phrases to target. Usually, there is no extra cost to add as many keyword phrases as possible. This makes the keyword selection process easier, since there is not a good deal of resources committed to optimizing a site for a particular keyword set. Under-performing keywords, while still an annoyance, do not cost extra (except for the time involved in setting up the account). To help identify keyword phrases, Overture has a tool on their site that allows advertisers to see how often particular search terms are actually typed in their engine. It also gives out popular suggestions based upon the terms you enter.
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Writing Descriptions
With a typical search engine description, the object is to entice as much traffic into a site as possible in the hopes of converting that traffic into customers. With PPC, a different approach is mandated. It is undesirable to pay for unlikely prospects, so the description is designed to eliminate the "tire kickers" while attracting highly targeted traffic. For this reason, the description should describe exactly what the business offers- a company wouldn't want to pay for every visitor looking for "insurance" if they only sold renter’s insurance, for example. At the same time, proven marketing copy techniques should be employed to insure that the description is enticing enough to attract ideal prospects.
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Monitoring and Analyzing
It is crucial to the success of any PPC campaign that it be monitored regularly, since positions can and do change every day. Since the top three Overture or Google AdWords results are what typically show up on most partner engines (some display more), the competition for these spots can be fierce, and bidding wars are common. If the price gets too high, it is usually prudent to withdraw and pursue a different keyword (the only way to really "lose" a bidding war is to pay too much for each visitor!). Apart from position monitoring, it is important to track and analyze the effectiveness of individual keyword phrases on a monthly basis. Viewing click-through rates and studying visitor habits can lend valuable insight into their motivations and habits, and help to further refine a Pay-Per-Click campaign.
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Conclusion
Pay Per Click campaigns can bring large numbers of highly targeted visitors to your website. However, these campaigns can become prohibitively expensive (and unlike “traditional” search engine optimization, the costs of any PPC campaign are likely to increase in the near future due to the increased popularity of this form of advertising). It is crucial to the success of the campaign that you pay a reasonable price for each visitor, that each visitor is highly targeted, and that you monitor your positions to maintain your exposure over time.
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Top Ten Pay-Per-Click Search Engines
Overture (Yahoo Search
Marketing)
The King of pay per click search engines, Overture has a well organized system. You can bid for rankings and also choose the description and title you want, which provides highly targeted traffic to your website. You can control your bids at all times and adjust them, based on the quality of your results. Especially handy is the Search Term Suggestion Tool, which shows you how often people search for a particular word or phrase.
Advertiser Tips and Tricks gives helpful tips from Overture's experts.
If you're in the top 10 at Overture, your link appears when someone searches using Dogpile meta search engine. If you're in the top six, you'll also appear in Metacrawler searches.
More people will click on your link if you use your key phrase in the title and in the description.
You'll probably receive more traffic from Overture than from all the other pay per click engines combined. However, because they are less popular, buying highly targeted traffic is much cheaper than at Overture.
FindWhat
At FindWhat search engine, you bid on keywords or key phrases within search results. You pay only for click-throughs to your site. The minimum amount needed to start an account is $25.
In March 2000 FindWhat introduced new technology designed to read most simple plain English queries. You can buy search terms cheaper than at Overture. In May, 2000, FindWhat said that more than 10 million searches a day were being made at the search engine.
You can enter up to 1000 keywords at once. FindWhat reviews every keyword in their system and verifies its relevancy.
7Search
7Search results appear in over 35% of the top 150 search engines in English-speaking countries and Alexa shows it to have a significant amount of traffic compared to other pay per click search engines. Services offered to advertisers include immediate e-mail notification when you are outbid for the top ranking on a keyword, a keyword generator tool, and a 1:1 banner exchange program.
GoClick
GoClick is a vastly improving pay per click search engine. It has received record increases in traffic and continues to upgrade the account area. It has some of the best tools available to help you manage your keywords and to help you to find more relevant terms.
Very professionally run and recommended.
Xuppa
Xuppa (formerly Bay9) still boasts a good amount of traffic according to Alexa. It has an affiliate program that pays 20% of referred account sign ups and will continue to pay 20% for 1 year. It also pays 20% of clicks on bidded listings.
Kanoodle
Kanoodle has partnerships with sites such as, NetZero, DogPile, CNET, Metacrawler and Turbofind. You can choose whether you want to receive incentivized clicks to your listings or not. You can start an account with $25.
ePilot
ePilot's results are displayed on partners' sites such as NetZero, DogPile and InfoSpace. ePilot's accounts area has undergone a major upgrade and is very easy to use. You can start an account with $100.
Ah-ha
Ah-ha has just undergone a site re-design featuring a new and improved accounts area. You can participate in its LogoLink program by including a logo graphic next to your listing. Listing your site with Ah-ha will make your site visible to about 50% of the top 10 pay per click search engines. Ah-ha is about to launch a great new affiliate program. You can open an account for $25.
Search123
Search123 has great tools to help you control your pay per click advertising budget. You can set a spend limit by the hour, day, week or month. You can start an account with $25 and continue making deposits as little as $5.
IQSeek
IQSeek is a well established search engine and has been developing its pay per click model for quite some time. Bidding starts at $0.01 and accounts may be opened for only $20. It has a good amount of traffic compared to most other pay per click search engines.
Espotting
Espotting is a UK based pay per click search engine. Your top 5 listings appear on Yahoo! UK,Lycos and Hotbot UK and will reach 72% of the UK Internet population. It also allows you to target a German, French and or Spanish audience with Espotting across Europe. You can start an account for £99. (£10 of that is a service fee.)
Metamission
MetaMission is offering a minimum 500% bonus with all new accounts. You can start an account with $50. It doesn't charge monthly fees and you will find many popular keywords still at or around 1 cent. MetaMission is also moving up the traffic ranks at Alexa.
For more valuable and free information on Pay-Per-Click Engines, please visit http://www.payperclicksearchengines.com/
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