Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)

Red Rhino Web Design

Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC)

Pay Per Click Advertising (also known as PPC, Pay Per Ranking, Pay Per Placement, Pay Per Position or Cost Per Click) is a term used to describe online advertising programmes, where the advertiser (site owner) pays the publishing site/engine each time a prospect clicks on his advert. Google Adwords is the best and most popular PPC programme online.

PPC enables you to list your site at the top of search engine results by advertising on keywords that best describe your product or service.

Pay for Online Advertising

Why PPC?

There can be several reasons for using PPC as well as Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

• It can take many weeks or months to become well ranked in the natural listings and PPC can bridge the gap by bringing visitors within days of your site going live
• You can be found for a wider range of keywords than you can normally achieve with SEO
• You will get some visitors through PPC who, for whatever reason, would not have clicked on the natural listing
• PPC programmes let you choose the keywords you want to advertise on, the amount you want to spend per click, the position you want your advert to be shown and you only pay if you get traffic!

Set a Daily Budget

How Much Does PPC Cost?

The position of your advert on a Google search results page, whether on the top of the page or in the right hand side column, depends upon how much you are willing to pay for a particular position. Using a system of bidding, the advertiser can choose to have his ad listed higher or lower, depending upon how many clicks he can get on each position and how much it costs.

You pay only when a searcher clicks on your listing and connects to your site. You don’t pay to show your advert, you only pay for clicks or click-throughs. Therefore, the more you pay “per click”, the better results you will have. The cost per click can vary from a few pence to a few pounds, depending on how much demand there is for your chosen keywords and key phrases. This way you only pay for the traffic to your site, there are no other hidden costs. But, don’t be scared by runaway costs in case you have a lot of clicks – you can set a daily budget, so as to limit your spend to suit your budget!