An effective Pay per click advertising program will drive targeted traffic to your website . Your goal, as a website owner, is to be on the first page of any search engine query that relates to your product or service. Appearing on the first page of a Google search is "gold" for a website owner as nearly 90% of all internet users will not go past the first page of search results.

However, you must understand the difference between organic search results and sponsored search results. As shown in the diagram below, organic search results appear in the middle of the screen for a Google search query. The sponsored links, or Pay per Click ads, appear to the right of the screen under the words "sponsored links." This is the end result of a Pay per Click campaign.

At this point you should be asking yourself why you would want to pay to be at the top of the "sponsored links" section when the "organic search results" are free. The short answer to that is this: Getting to the first page of an organic search query can be very difficult depending upon how competitive your field is. Optimizing your website is time consuming and hiring a Search Engine Optimization expert can itself be very expensive. In a perfect world you will promote your website both ways. But, for now let's focus on the Pay per Click web advertising which delivers nearly instantaneous results for the website owner who wants to be on the first page of a search query immediately.

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Now that you know the difference between organic and paid you can get started on your Pay per Click advertising campaign . You need to know the lay of the land and it all starts with the Big Three.

Setting up your advertising campaign must begin with deciding what message you want to advertise. Your Pay per click advertising campaign can be broken off into many small campaigns based on the different sectors of your business. Keywords for each sector will need to be determined to create a campaign effectively.

Also important in Pay per click advertising is determining which search engine to advertise on. While the most popular search engines include Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask Network, and Time Warner, you may or may not decide to advertise on any or all of these sites.

However, setting up your Pay per click advertising program on the three most popular sites is essential in the minds of Keniston & Company. Google is the number one search engine site, followed by Yahoo and MSN. Google's AdWords Pay per click program is the most popular program available, and is extremely simple to use. Your advertising campaign would be dead without AdWords. Yahoo's Pay per click advertising is another extremely important search engine to utilize in your advertising efforts. While Yahoo is not as popular as Google, its Pay per click program is simple to use and is a Pay per click campaign staple. MSN Pay per click advertising is the third advertising program that is a must. MSN is a strong factor in Pay per click web advertising.

Another important aspect of Pay per click advertising is your Pay per click ads . Developing these ads to get your message across effectively will increase your overall advertising results. Text ads are the most important part of Pay per click search engine advertising because these ads are what customers will be clicking on after a search query. Very specific, simple text ads should be your focus with each ad specifically relating to the product or service you are advertising.

Now that you have a good understanding on Pay Per Click advertising its time to move on to the Pay Per Click Campaign management and how that works. For help managing your campaign, please contact us.