What Is Pay Per Click?

Pay-per-click (PPC) is an online marketing method that allows you to promote your service or products through search engines, websites and advertising networks. The process is as follows:  the user clicks on an ad, which triggers a cost to the advertiser, and usually payment to the site or search platform displaying the ad.  It is often used in tandem with search engine optimization campaigns designed to propel companies high in “natural” or “organic” search listings. Paid ads are usually displayed at the top and to the right of natural listings or website content. If a company occupies both a top organic listing and a top paid listing, there’s a good chance that a user will click on their search result.

PPC Platforms

Google AdWords and Microsoft’s Ad Center are currently the top Pay Per Click platforms in the US. Both use similar models. The advertiser selects keywords they think target customers will use in a search engine and then places “bids” on how much they are willing to pay per click. These keywords – when used in a search – will trigger an ad (also written by the advertiser), which the user will click on if the ad is relevant to what they are looking for.

Ads with good “click through rates” (CTRs) are shown more frequently and cost the advertiser less than ads that are not clicked on as often. The CTR, combined with relevance of keyword to ad to landing page copy helps determine how much an advertiser will pay per click on any given keyword. Google calls this a quality score. Advertisers with higher quality scores generally pay less than those with low quality scores because Google’s goal is to serve up the most relevant content.

Conclusion

Pay-per-click advertising generates immediate results since advertisers can turn these campaigns on and off at will. It is often an excellent technique to use to drive traffic to a brand new site that is not indexed by search engines yet. It is also an excellent tactic for figuring out how audiences respond to different keywords and messaging, which can be carried over to the website itself. Again, it is also a great way to dominate the real estate in the search result pages, when used in tandem with SEO.