What about Pay-Per-Click Search Engines?
Is PPC advertising worth the cost?

Q: How do pay-per-click search engines work?

A: Most pay-per-click search engines are based on a bidding system - the highest positions go to the top bidders. This means that a click is worth whatever you want to pay for it (your bid), but to get your PPC listing at the very top for a popular search phrase, you might have to pay quite a lot for each click. The search term "web hosting" for example, currently costs over $5.00 per click on Yahoo! Sponsored Search. But a much less popular term like "Ohio wedding band" would cost you only 12 cents for a #1 spot. It all depends on what you're selling or promoting.

Q: How do I know what search terms to select?

A: As with traditional "organic" search engine placement, the success of a pay per click campaign depends on the relevance of the search words and phrases you select. But it also depends on the cost per click of your PPC listings. The best way to identify popular search terms is with the Wordtracker service. Wordtracker allows you to type in a term, and then get back a list of other search phrases that include that term so you can see exactly how often each phrase is searched. Wordtracker is available in a free trial so you can try before you buy. Click here to find out more. Two other useful tools are Yahoo's "Term Suggestion" and "View Bids" tools which are available here on Yahoo Search Marketing's advertiser center.

Q: How do I know what PPC search engines to use?

A: The larger PPC services like Yahoo Search Marketing (formerly Overture) and Google AdWords provide the best placement, including front page positions on places like Yahoo and Google. But they also typically charge the highest costs per click due to higher competition. Other PPC providers like Enhance Interactive, Findology, FindWhat and Search123 get a bit less exposure, but they are typically much less expensive than the other two so you will pay less per qualified visitor.

Sign-up pages and special offers on the top PPC search engines:

• Findology - get your ads on popular targeted Web sites for as little as 1 cent ($.01) per click! Sign up for Findology today and get $50 in free advertising (that's up to 5,000 targeted visitors) on popular high quality search angines and Web sites such as Internet.com (ClickZ network) and RottenTomatoes.com. What makes Findology unique is that you can pick and choose which sites will display your listings. Most PPC search engines display your listings on any and all of the sites within their syndication network, which may be a good fit or may not. By allowing you to select just which sites get your ads, Findology lets you really zero in on your target audience. Findology also lets you target your ads geographically (by country), in case your business is limited to a particular region or language. Click here for your $50 in free clicks on Findology.
  
  
• Kanoodle - get your ads in front of over one billion searches per month for as little as 5 cents per click. Sign up for Kanoodle today and get $10 in free advertising on popular search engines including Metacrawler, Dogpile, WebCrawler, Infospace, Go2net, CNET, Mamma, Galaxy, and Ixquick.com. Unlike many PPC bonus offers, this is a true free trial with no deposit required and no commitment! Kanoodle also offers access to advertising on popular content sites like CBS Marketwatch and Quicken.com, so you can get in front of millions of web surfers and targeted prospects for just pennies a click. Click here for your $10 in free clicks. or find out more about Kanoodle.
  
  
• Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture) - Top listings on Yahoo!, Alta Vista, MSN, Lycos and other top search engines. Sign up now through this link to get a $50 bonus. (new accounts only). Find out more about Yahoo! Search Marketing.
  
  Yahoo's basic sign-up is free but they also offer a "Fast Track" option for $199 where they will create your listings for you and expedite the listing process to get you up and running within 3 days. This is definitely worth the investment if your time is limited and you're eager to get started. You can get a $50 credit on Yahoo's FastTrack program here.
  
  
• MIVA (formerly Findwhat) offers PPC listings starting at 5 cents per click with distribution on popular search engines like CNET's Search.com, Excite, Webcrawler, NBCi, MetaCrawler, Dogpile and Go2Net. SPECIAL OFFER - sign up through this link to get $10 in free click-throughs -- up to 200 free qualified visitors! Find out more about MIVA.
  
  
• Enhance Interactive (formerly ah-ha.com) offers PPC listings as low as 3 cents per click to reach a user base of up to 40 million unique users monthly on sites such as MSN, Netzero, and dogpile.com. SPECIAL OFFER - Click here for $25 in free clicks with new account sign-up. The credit will appear in your account once you make your initial deposit. Find out more about Enhance.
  
  
• Search123 includes your PPC ads only on sites whose content is a match for your specific service or product. They are highly selective in accepting Traffic partners so you can rest assured that your ads will only display on high quality - and highly targeted - Web sites. SPECIAL OFFER - sign up through this link to get $20 in free click-throughs or find out more about Search123.
  
  

Q: How do I know if my ads are effective?

A: Each of the major Pay-Per-Click providers offers extensive reporting capabilities so you can see which ads are pulling the most visitors. But an ad can be popular without being effective. The ultimate guideline for any pay-per-click ad is how much business is it bringing me? If you're paying $100 per day in click fees to advertise cell phones, but you're only generating $75 per day in revenue from that ad, then you either need to cut back on your advertising (lower your per-click bids) or improve your site's conversion rate from visitor to sale.

It's important not to get too attached to ads that don't work just because you think they should work. One of our clients with substantial affiliate earnings was spending $10 to $15 every day advertising Yu-Gi-Oh! trading cards and games on Google. They were attracting the visitors, then sending these prospective buyers to their partner's Web site for the sale. At the time, this was an extremely popular search so these ads were bringing in hundreds of visitors every day. But the conversion rates on the partner Web site from visitor to sale were too low, so they were only realizing $7 to $10 per day in revenue. Since our client had no control over the destination site, we recommended they discontinue these ads and concentrate on other search terms and affiliate programs that were more lucrative.

It may take as little as a week, or a long as three months to determine whether a particular pay-per-click ad is effective. But as long as you monitor your spending and your earnings closely, and adjust your ads accordingly, you can generate positive income with paid search listings.

Q: This sounds like time-consuming work. Can I hire someone to manage my Pay-Per-Click programs?

A: You can manage your programs yourself, or you can hire us to do it. We have tools and experience that allow us to manage pay-per-click advertising accounts as efficiently as possible. We will set up the accounts for you, including writing all of your creative copy, and send you monthly reports as to which ads are bringing in the most visitors and at what cost.

Q: How can I find out more?

A: For more details on how you can get your web site higher in the search engines, and launch a powerful, cost-effective pay-per-click advertising program, please fill out our Contact Request form.