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1. What Is Pay Per Click?
Pay per click advertising on search engines allows you
choose keywords you would like your site to appear for
when a search is performed. You decide how much you are
willing to pay each time a person clicks on the search
results. The more you are willing to pay per click, the
higher your site will appear in the results for the
keywords you choose.
2. Which Search Engines Allow Pay Per Click
Advertising?
There are hundreds of pay per click search engines.
Generally, the larger the pay per click search engine,
the more you will have to bid to get to the top for your
keywords. This is why it is worth investigating
different search engines to find what it would cost to
bid on your keywords and how much traffic they draw.
The largest companies in the pay per click industry are
Overture and Google. Google is not a pay per click
search engine, but it does provide pay per click
advertising in text ad boxes to the right of search
results it delivers. It also delivers pay per click ads
to other content sites.
3. Important Considerations
A very important point to keep in mind with pay per
click is you must test, test, and test some more. Don't
start off with a major investment. Start with the
minimum and see how the search engine performs in terms
of the traffic it delivers and how well that traffic
converts into paying customers.
An essential part of your testing is having a method in
place that allows you to track your return on money
invested.
For example, if your goal is to bring in new subscribers
to your newsletter, you could direct visitors arriving
from your pay per click link to a subscription form set
up just for them. You can then monitor how many clicks
actually result in a new subscription. As such, you will
know how much you are paying for each new subscriber.
Before spending any money with a pay per click search
engine, be sure they can answer the following questions:
How many searches a month are performed at the search
engine?
What major search partners or affiliates does the search
engine have?
How many searches are generated each month by the search
partners or affiliates?
Is it possible to opt out of having your listing appear
in the results of the affiliate sites?
What fraud prevention mechanisms are in place?
What is the procedure for filing a "fraudulent clicks"
report?
Will an account be credited for fraudulent clicks
discovered?
Is it possible to opt out of having a listing appear for
searches originating from specific countries?
Is there a posted terms of service for search partners
or affiliates.
Look for search engines that have very strict guidelines
for dealing with their search affiliates. This is
important because you want to be sure the search engine
is working hard to prevent fraud among its affiliates.
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