The PPC Search Engine

Here’s a fact for you, 85 to 95% of Websites are found through a search engine. You may have the most incredible Website on the Internet, but it will receive little or no traffic without search engine visibility and ranking. Can you imagine a billboard in the Sahara desert? Who sees it?

So, how will searchers find your website? What types of search engines could they use?

Search engines fall into two categories. The first is referred to as natural, organic or standard. The second is called pay-per-click, paid inclusion or paid placement.

Natural, organic and standard are interchangeable terms describing a search engine that bases its search rankings on a ranking algorithm. The algorithms involve a number of criteria and parameters, all relating to the content of the website, the websites size, the number of incoming links to the website, and the content’s relevancy. You will hear terms such as keyword relevancy and keyword density to describe various components of the algorithms. (more…)

Forbes magazine has reported that pay per click ad sales are expected to increase to at least $8 billion by 2008.

The three fundamental core elements that form the basis of a successful pay per click ad program are constant monitoring,analysis, and refinement.

Pay per click search engines offer a way to buy your way to the top of search results for any term you wish. With proper management, and a clear focus, pay per click search engines can offer some of the most well targeted and economical advertising on the Internet.

Pay per click advertising works through a bidding process, and the ads appear prominently on the results pages of search engines such as Google and Yahoo. The highest bidder for a particular word or phrase receives top placement, and depending on the engine, the top three to five bidders also generally also receive placement on the first page of unpaid search results. (more…)

PPC advertising has many great benefits. First of all, you get your traffic going quickly. I have used this advantage many times. I test new products and even new websites through PPC advertising before making a decision to promote or scrap my new website or product idea.

I am a firm believer in testing new products before throwing large amounts of money into advertising. PPC advertising is a great way to do this. For example, with Google’s Adwords program, you can post your ad, pay a $5 sign-up fee and have highly targeted traffic to your website within an hour. How is that for efficiency?

Also, you can moniter your click charges and stop them before they get too expensive. By the time you have spent your budget on clicks, you should have a pretty good idea of how successful your product is going to be. (more…)

The final answer is “Maybe.”

Hey…Whadya expect? I’m an attorney!

But let me explain further. The correct answer to almost any marketing question is “to test.” That’s the only way you really know the true answer. But we can learn from the results that others have and adapt them to our marketing.

When it comes to PPC (pay-per-click) search engines, you know they are not all created equal. Google and Overture dominate the market. The total traffic you get from them will dwarf the total from all other PPC search engines combined.

But does that mean that there’s no money in the little guys? Au Contraire. (That’s the fancy French way of saying, “No.” — and I probably missspelllled it. It’s been long time since my high school French class.)

Before I give you some suggestions, please realize that your results are going to vary - always.

Here’s the most important point of this entire article: (more…)