The People's Guide to Pay-Per-Clicks

By Alvin Apple
Posted Friday, October 22, 2004

Have you tried to get your site listed on a search engine and ended up lost in a sea of red tape? Have you paid a lot of money to have your site listed only to get little or no response? Don't give up. You aren't alone, in fact there are thousands of others out there asking the same questions you are. How do I get listed on a search engine? How do I make sure that my site is highly ranked? The inner workings of search engines can be as mysterious as a masonic temple ritual, but you can side-step the hassle.

One way to circumvent the agony of submitting and resubmitting your site to search engines is to go with a pay-per-click program. These simple and effective programs, as well as similar pay-per-impression programs are offered at several search engines such as AskJeeves, Google, Goto, and NetFlip.

A pay-per-click system is a search engine ranking system which is based on bids. You choose a search term or terms, and then bid a certain amount of money, which you pay each time a net-surfer clicks on your url. When a search term is entered, all of the sites registered with that term are displayed in order of bid, highest to lowest. The bid list is available to all who register, so you can decide where you will be ranked, based on how much you're willing to spend. Really common terms are more heavily used, and therefore more expensive. I've seen some business search term bids go over a dollar per click, so this may price you out, but you should try to list with at least one of the more common terms, even if you don't rank in the top ten or even 20.

It definitely pays to be creative here, too. If you can think of a new, fresh term that hasn't been used much or at all, you can end up at the top of a list. You don't want to get too obscure, though, or your site may never be seen. Try just tweaking the more common phrases associated with your business, and always make sure you have a succinct, descriptive title which is related to your search terms.

Another effective way of getting seen on the search engines is the pay-per-impression system. This is a new system, and is very similar to pay-per-click. Rather than paying to be listed as a search term result, you pay to have a banner ad run on the same page with a list of specific search term results. You pay each time a page with your banner is viewed, and the rates are usually per thousand views. This costs a lot less then pay-per-click, and still manages to get your business seen by a lot of people. AskJeeves and Google are currently offering this service, and people who are using it are meeting with great success.

So you see? You can use the search engines to your advantage without being a genius. With pay-per-click and pay-per-impression you can make sure that your site gets seen. All you need is a little creativity. There's money to be made out there if you just know how.

About the Author
Alvin Apple helps everyday people start businesses they will enjoy. Then he teaches them how to succeed. Read all his helpful strategies at (http://AlvinApple.com) Reach Alvin at 801-328-9006 or alvin@drnunley.com.