Pay Per Click (PPC) sites can fetch instant traffic. Some are excellent and some are not. PPC can bring a wealth of traffic. By looking at the Sponsored Matches (Sponsor Results) on Yahoo!-Overture-Inktomi- Altavista and at the Sponsored Links on Google. The top ads appear as featured links at the top (and at the bottom) of search engine results for the particular keywords in many search engines. Bid for a particular search word compared to other businesses and then ranking is determined. This can be a cost-effective way to get targeted traffic; payment is made when someone actually clicks on the link. Lower cost PPC systems include FindWhat and Kandoodle.

Important Tips for PPC

1. Understand the "space." primarily, understand where ads will show up (on Google, AOL, Yahoo, etc.), and *why* they show up. They are triggered by keywords typed by people doing a search, but they aren’t search results, they are ads. There is need to know which major partners are included in the "networks" of the major PPC’s - Google, Overture, FindWhat and LookSmart.

2. Budget appropriately. Many businesses project unrealistic response rates for their initial batch of targeted clicks. Ten or twenty clicks won’t cut it. Most websites are hungry for clicks and need hundreds or thousands of highly targeted visitors per day to produce any response worth measuring. A good rule of thumb for a targeted retail offer is a ratio of clicks to sales conversions of between 0.5% and 2%, but this may vary wildly by industry, by keyword, etc.

3. Make use of phrase-matching options in the pay-per-click account. Mastering phrase matches, broad (wild card) matches and exact matches will help in presenting the ad to more or fewer visitors depending on the situation, and will improve the targeting–wherever possible.

4. Don’t buy clicks from a company where company is unknown. If customer pay $50 to an unknown company may not be much to that customer, but it could be helping an unscrupulous company stay in business.

5. Be careful with bids (or don’t "ego-bid"). A #1 position on the page may give the impression of being outstanding, but it can be very costly, increasing the number of "compulsive" clicks at a higher cost-per-click. Try #2, #3, even #5 or #9 on competitive keywords. This cheaper cost-per-click will in turn allow keeping the daily budget under the cap.

6. Get comfortable with reporting interfaces. Google and Overture offer riches of summary information about different aspects of the campaign, such as average cost-per-click, ad positions, clickthrough rates, etc. broken down by keyword. Important - don’t freak out over day-to-day fluctuations. Stats are more reliable when interpreted on a weekly or monthly basis. Checking of daily stats can be done to satisfy interest, but should not overreact over the results.

7. on top of all, track conversions using a software package or in-house solution. It’s like flying blind and wasting money when the information regarding keywords, which are converting to sales, is not available. Keep in mind, a conversion does not have to be a sale. Many businesses measure their "cost per action" instead. Actions can include registrations, free downloads, catalog requests, application forms, quote requests, newsletter subscriptions, etc.