The essence of Pay Per Click (PPC) campaigns is understanding that PPC is basically system of buying advertising space on search engines – in some ways it’s like trying to be able to place your ad on prime time TV. In the case of Pay Per Click campaigns you will be paying the search engines for placing your listing and link in an eye-catching way on the result page and the more prominent it is, the more you will have to pay. A search result page is divided into two types of results – the general ones that appear based on relevance or popularity and the attention grabbing ones placed on a different part of the page and these are the ones you are paying for as part of your Pay Per click Campaign. It is these “special” results – the ones that are noticed fist – that are PPC listings.

Obviously a PPC listing will attract more attention – it is the first thing the eye is drawn to on the page, so the chances of people clicking the PPC link first are high. But not all PPC listings are equal; there are usually a few of them and here too the ones at the top of the list will get the most responses. The higher up the PPC group of results you want your listing to appear, the more your Pay Per Click campaign will cost you because you will have to pay more to the search engine.

The benefit of Pay Per Click campaigns is that you do not pay a fixed amount; instead you pay the search engine the agreed amount for each person who clicks on your link and visits your site. Keep in mind that the clicks so not means sales – Pay Per Click campaigns only brings visitors to your site and it is up to you to convert these visits into sales. Pay Per Click campaigns have the advantage of being very targeted and allowing you to monitor the effectiveness of the listing – you will know how many people clicked the link and how many of them bought from you. Knowing how many people followed your PPC link and balancing that against the increase in sales will allow you to judge how effective the Pay Per Click campaign has been and if the returns do not justify the expenditure, you can stop and think of other options.