Both pay-per-click and SEO are targeted to get your website
placed as close to the top of search engine results as
possible. One of the differences is that it takes minutes
to set up a pay-per-click campaign versus months for a good
SEO campaign.

Pay-Per-Click is a simple type of paid advertising that most
search engines, including some of the largest ones, now offer.
It requires a bid for a "per-click" basis, which translates to
your company paying the bid amount every time the search engine
directs a visitor to your site. There is the added bonus that
when a per-click site sends your website traffic, your site
often appears in the results of other prevalent search engines.

As with all marketing campaigns, there are advantages and
disadvantages. If you understand the process and monitor your
pay-per-click campaign frequently, it can be very effective.
One of the greatest advantages is that you never have to tweak
your web pages to change your position in search engine results,
as you must do in a typical SEO campaign. What you do have to do
in a pay-per-click campaign is pay a fee.

Another advantage is the simplicity of the pay-per-click process.
You just bid and you're up and running. It doesn't demand any
specific technical knowledge, though the more you know about
search engines and keywords, the easier - and more effective -
the process will be.

The downside is that pay-per-click is essentially a bidding war.
A higher bid than yours will lower your position on search engine
results. This means that you will have to raise your bid to regain
your position - which can obviously become quite  expensive,
especially if you are bidding on a popular keyword.

In order to determine if pay-per-click is a cost effective form of
marketing for your business, you must do some computing to figure
out how much each visitor to your site is worth. You can compute
this value by dividing the profit you make on your website over a
given period of time by the total number of visitors for that same
time period. For example, if your site made $5,000 in profits and
there were 2,5000 hits, each visitor would be theoretically worth
50 cents. The basic formula is profits divided by visitors.

The figure of 50 cents per visitor is the point at which your
business breaks even. The idea, of course, is to show a profit,
not to merely cover your costs. Therefore, you are aiming at a
figure less than 50 cents per click.

Be aware that the most popular keywords often cost considerably
more than 50 cents a click. The only way around this is to bid
less for these phrases or you will be paying too much for each
individual hit.

The key (pun intended) to success is to learn everything you can
about search engine keyword research. The good news is there
isn't a limit to the amount of keywords you can add to your bid
because additional keywords do not add additional cost. This
translates into a lot less hassle for you because there is no
need to optimize your site to index a particular set of keywords.

Obviously, some keywords are much more effective than others are,
but they will not cost you anything except time to set-up your
account in your pay-per-click bid. Of the popular search engines
that offer pay-per-click, one called Overture provides an online
tool that will give you the data on how often particular keywords
are entered into their search engine. They also offer suggestions
for keywords after you enter a description of your site.

In pay-per-click, this written description is crucial. You must
understand that the object of your description is not to generally
attract visitors, but to be as specific as possible so that only
those visitors who are likely to buy your service or product go to
your site. You must use expert marketing copy to guarantee that
your description is both precise and enticing to attract the most
ideal candidates to your site. This description is your most
powerful tool to insure that your bid is profitable.

Another essential element of pay-per-click advertising is that
you constantly monitor your bid. It is very important that you
bear in mind that the results of the top search engines providing
pay-per-click advertising, which are Overture and Adwords Select,
usually appear on other popular search engines. Because of this,
the competition for top ranking is intense, and very often you
will find that the bidding price balloons too high for pay-per-
click to yield a profit.

If this happens, it is advisable to withdraw your bid on that
particular keyword and try another one. Remember: when you pay
too much per click to make a profit, you are in essence losing
the bidding war.

Since losing is not acceptable, you must have a plan in place to
closely track the effectiveness of your keyword. It is advisable
to monitor your keywords on at least a monthly basis.

Not only is careful monitoring important, but the analysis of
visitor behavior can produce invaluable knowledge about consumer
motivation, habits, and trends. Expert monitoring and consumer
analysis is essential to your overall business needs, and will
also insure that your pay-per-click campaign is a success.