Search engine marketing is definitely the best source of targeted traffic on the Internet currently. As most people make use of the search engines (up to 80% of surfers use a search engine to find info or products), the battle for search position is getting high day-to- day. There are arguably only two major marketing strategies being employed by companies/webmasters in the market to date: PPC and SEO. SEO has been there since the beginning of the Internet, while PPC is the "new kid on the block".

PPC or "Pay Per Click" refers to text-based marketing, where companies/webmasters get charged by the click whenever a surfer clicks on their paid ads. Search rankings are usually based on bidding prices. These are usually designated on the engines as "sponsored listings".

SEO refers to "Search Engine Optimization". This is search ranking based on numerous factors like link popularity, page rank, etc. The listings for these appear on the main search results of an engine, also called "natural or organic search listings”. The main engines offer these as free submissions (though many smaller engines are finding ways to "charge" website submissions nowadays).

PPC Advantages

• PPC traffic, ranking and results tend to be more stable, more predictable.

• PPC is the more popular advertising intermediate on the Internet. Because it’s popular, we can more easily convince our employer/boss to spend some ad budget on this, as the risks of trying out other less popular marketing methods are higher.

• Ability to rank high on the search engines, without having to do tedious work involved in getting the high ranking of site. As long as we have the budget, good to high ranking is ours.

Also, PPC listings get posted much faster, usually a few days (after editor review).