Pay Per Click - General Tips

Pay Per Click (also known as Search Engine Marketing or PPC), involves sponsoring keywords relevant to your product or service in order to attain a prominent position on the search engine results page. PPC works by bidding on the amount you are willing to pay per click; the more you bid, the higher your ad will appear in the 'sponsored ad' listings. When a user searches for a keyword query matching your keyword list, the advertisers correlating advert will appear in the sponsored search.

If the user subsequently clicks on that advert, you pay up to your specified maximum bid per click.  Unlike other marketing options, PPC offers measurable results and lets you test different ads. You can have multiple objectives including acquiring new customers, increasing brand awareness or influencing purchasing decisions.

Who uses PPC?

Anyone can use pay per click. Millions of people use Google and Yahoo each day to search for information, research something they are interested in or to purchase something. It’s a great form of advertising as you only pay each time somebody clicks on your advert making it one of the most cost-effective methods of advertising because you are only paying for people to visit your site who are actually interested in your products or services. 

Who Can Help?

Google Adwords has a comprehensive help centre which addresses queries from General Account Information, Targeting Ads, and Monitoring Performance to Managing Multiple Accounts and much more. Similarly, Yahoo! Search has a help centre located here.

Where to Start

Setting up accounts for both Yahoo and Google is easy. Simply choose who you want to target, select your keywords, set your maximum bids and budget, create your ads and activate your accounts.

• To open a Google Adwords account sign up here.
• For Yahoo! Search Marketing sign up here.