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Have you ever noticed those adverts or short lines of text which appear on websites as you browse? Were you aware that you can make money every time someone clicks on an advert or a few random lines of text on a website? It’s know as pay per click advertising and there are several different options available, of which the biggest and best known is Googles Adwords programme. The attraction for both advertiser and site owner appears obvious but is it an effective medium for either or both parties?

PPC advertising is growing apace, being regarded as an immediate and effective way for businesses to grow their market share while they develop a more organic search engine presence through conventional white hat SEO methods. Indeed while many advertisers choose to use PPC to place themselves in front of potential customers as their SEO efforts are developing many recognise the immediacy of PPC and continue to use it as a means of internet marketing even when they have managed to get their site(s) to the first page in the SERPs.

All of which is great news for the various search engines who profit from PPC ads placement

So if you are interested in pursuing a PPC campaign what do you need to do to ensure it is effective and profitable? As in most forms of internet marketing the choice of keywords is crucial. Your ads will show up every time a person types in a certain word or phrase so it’s important to ensure that the words or phrase is one which not only has decent amounts of traffic in the first place, but also represents accurately the product or service offered by your business.

PPC works in the following way: the client, ie the website owner pays the search engine advertiser – Google, Bing etc –a certain sum every time their advert is clicked by someone browsing the internet, regardless of whether they go on to buy the product or service. The amount payable varies, broadly in line with how competitive the market is and the value of the market as a whole. For instance, a click on an avert for car insurance will cost the advertiser or site owner much more than a click on an ad for carpet cleaning.

So what is the best way as a site owner to get the best from PPC. Initially PPC was used as a quick and inexpensive way of driving traffic to your site. It did not matter if your site was not well placed in the SERPs, you could have a sponsored listing at the op of the search results driving decent amounts of traffic to your site straight away. PPC is more expensive these days. While it can still be used as a standalone method of driving visitors to your site it is often best used in conjunction with traditional SEO to get the maximum number of visitors to a site. While it has long been appreciated that the top three results in the organic listings can receive up to eighty per cent of visitors for a particular search term, it is now being recognised that a top organic listing, combined with a sponsored listing, can sometimes be even more effective in generating maximum visitors to a site.