PPC Advertising - How It Works

This article is brought to you by Searching-For-Profits, The eternal quest for making a
living online.

If you’d like to download this article for your own use, see below, at the end of the article.

"By: Christoher Enders

PPC advertising is simply advertising your website through the use of the pay-per-click
search engines. To grasp an understanding of ppc advertising, you need to understand
what a pay-per-click search engine is if you don't know already. A pay-per-click search
engine is basically a search engine that takes the guesswork out of getting top-ranking
in a search engine and in effect, enables you to buy your rank so to speak.

When using a ppc search engine you bid on keywords or keyword phrases that your
targeted prospects may use to find whatever your website offers. When you outbid
competitors that have bid on the same keyword or keyword phrase, your website will be
ranked over theirs. Because you "pay-per-click", you only get charged your bid amount
for actual visits to your site that result from your ppc advertising rather than being
charged a flat fee for placing an ad.

Some pay-per-click search engine services, like Yahoo! Search Marketing for instance,
only consider the bid amount in ranking a site. Others, like Google Adwords, may also
consider the popularity of an ad based on click through rates in ranking a website. For
the purpose of ppc advertising, this is really a good thing because it enables those with
relevant products or services to achieve a decent ranking even if they don't have an
enormous ppc advertising budget. It is also good for those using the search engines to
find information because relevant, popular ppc advertisements will appear in their
search results.

The most popular ppc advertising options include Google Adwords and Yahoo! Search
Marketing (formerly known as Overture). Google because it is the most widely used
search engine and Yahoo! Search Marketing because it provides listings in several
search engines including Yahoo!, MSN, Alta Vista, and Netscape as well as others.

The first step to designing an effective and profitable ppc advertising campaign is to
determine your budget. Budgeting for ppc advertising involves not only determining
how much money you can spend on your ppc advertising campaign, but basing that on
the monetary value of a click to your website since you are paying per click.

Throughout your ppc advertising campaign you must monitor it to be sure that you are
getting a good return on your investment.
Your conversion rate, the number of unique visitors divided by the number of sales,
plays an important role in determining the value of a click to your site for ppc
advertising budgeting purposes as does the average net profit per sale. By dividing
your net profit per sale by your conversion rate, you can accurately determine the value
per click to your website. The price per click that you pay for your ppc advertising
should not exceed this value. If it does, you will be spending too much on your ppc
advertising and you won't get any return on your investment.

Of course, it is ideal to pay less than the value per click so that your ppc advertising will
generate profit rather than eating up your revenues. To boost conversion rates it is vital
that you use relevant keywords that will put your site in front of those most interested in
what you are offering. However, if the bids on a choice keyword are too high, a little
brainstorming combined with a keyword analysis through Wordtracker will give you
additional ideas for keywords for your ppc advertising that have lower bids on them and
may be just as effective. You may also get some ideas for keywords by looking at your
competitors' source code to see what they are using.

Reports from your ppc advertising provider will help you to monitor your ppc
advertising. Also, the information provided through web logs will tell you where your
traffic is coming from so you can determine which ppc advertising bids are performing
the best. If you approach ppc advertising logically and monitor it regularly making
adjustments as needed, ppc advertising is a powerful tool for profitably driving traffic
your website.

About The Author
Copyright Christopher Enders. Whether you are new to internet marketing, or a website
owner who wants to make more money from your website, you will benefit from the
information you will find at http://www.BiznessTips.com."

If you find this article of your own interest, feel free to download it from:
http://www.quest4profit.net/ppc-advertising.pdf

You can get Quality Articles Customized with your website and link free at:
http://QualityArticleCenter.com