Pay Per Click Advertising

While a top ranking in the natural search engine listings can take some time to achieve, pay per click is a most effective way of bringing immediate traffic at a surprisingly affordable price. This type of advertising enables you to choose the keywords for which you would like your site to appear on search engines when a search is performed.

Pay per click (PPC) advertising is the most dynamic way to advertise on the internet. According to Jupiter Research Agency (www.jupiterresearch.com), in 2004 advertisers spent US$2.6 billion on PPC advertising, a figure which is expected to increase to US$19 billion by 2010. Pay per click advertising on search engines allows a website to appear in the search results right up there with the market leaders.

In PPC, rankings are calculated for keyword phrases based primarily on the price that is being paid. The advertiser decides how much they are willing to pay each time a person clicks on the search results. The more they are willing to pay per click and the more popular the advert, the higher the site will appear in the results for the chosen keywords. Advertisers only pay for people who actually visit their site, visitors who are actively searching for their product and are therefore already potential customers

Although there are numerous pay per click search engines, two of them are worth serious consideration, Google (Google Adwords) and Yahoo Search Marketing. Microsoft has an exciting and powerful paid advertising product which is currenty available only in the USA, France and Singapore, it will become available in the UK towards the end of 2006, watch this space!

Google Adwords

The Google Network is the largest online advertising network available, your ads will appear alongside or above the results on Google search results pages [View Example].

Exposure on Google's Partner Sites
Your ads also appear on Google's partner sites, reaching over 80% of Internet users. Partners include AOL, Ask Jeeves, Virgin Internet, The New York Times, The About Network, Infospace and many more. You decide on the keywords that you wish to target and the maximum amount that you are prepared to pay for that word or phrase (CPC or cost-per-click), you also specify a maximum daily budget so that you have complete control over what you spend.

Click Through Rate Explained
The amount that you bid is not the only factor determining your position however. Your CTR (click-through-rate) - which is calculated by dividing the number of times that your ad is clicked by the number of times that it has appeared - and your CPC, together determine the position of your ads on the page. This means that the text of the advert is very important, since a well written and catchy advert will attract more clicks than a poorly written one. If an ad is irrelevant to users, they will not click on it and it will move down the page even though that ad might have a high CPC.

Good Return on Investment
For the potential of pay per click advertising, consider the following scenario. A hotel costing R1000 per night for example, pays R5 per click for the search term "South African hotel" and generates one booking per 20 clicks. The 20 clicks, at R5 each, cost a total of R100, the income for one night is R1000. That's a pretty good return.

Quick to Set Up
A Google adwords account takes a few minutes to set up, it can be paid in SA Rand and can be up and running within 15 minutes, generating qualified traffic to your website. There is no minimum monthly spend requirement although there is a once off R50 setup fee.

Contact Search Maestros for Google adwords pay per click management. Contact Us.

Yahoo Search Marketing

Human Reviewers
Yahoo Search Marketing (previoulsy called Overture) functions in a similar way to Google adwords although the process is not automated. Adverts are submitted to Yahoo and are approved or rejected by human reviewers. The process usually takes around 3 days. If you wish to add new keywords at a later date or delete an advert, once again this has to be done by a human reviewer. The end result is less control for the advertiser.

Yahoo Partner Sites
Yahoo adverts, like Google's, appear on a large number of partner sites including Alta Vista, CNN, Infospace and MSN. The adverts are more integrated with the main (natural) search results and usually show before the natural listings [View Example].

Minimum Monthly Spend
Yahoo requires a deposit when setting up an account, this varies from country to country but is usually around $50 (US) and also has a minimum monthly spend requirement, once again this varies but is usually around $20. If clicks to your advert don't amount to the minimum monthly requirement, Yahoo will charge your account that amount anyway. If you wish your advert to appear in say the UK, Germany and the USA an account would have to be set up in each of these countries branches.

Contact Search Maestros for Yahoo pay per click management. Contact Us.