PPC Search Engines
A very efficient option for driving targeted traffic to your site is using pay-per-click (PPC) search engines. There are two payment models for PPC engines: pay a flat fee for every click, or bid for your position in the search results for specific key words. In the second version of this model, each webmaster selects where their URLs will appear in the search results by bidding for the amount they are willing to pay each time a person clicks on their link. You can choose exactly the best search terms to bid on, so that only the most targeted traffic comes to your site.
There are several leaders in the bid-for-position field and each have their strengths:
Yahoo!'s Sponsored Search (formerly Overture) is the most popular PPC search engine, reaching 80% of internet search traffic. Yahoo!, MSN, Infospace, AltaVista, and other major search engines display the first three Overture results at the top of their search results pages as "sponsored results". Although the traffic can be high for popular key words, the cost per click can be quite expensive, too. You can sign up with a $5 deposit and have your listings processed in about 5 business days. For a $199 listing fee your submission will be processed in about 3 days and you will have the benefit of automatic approval & specialized assistance in selecting key words to bid on. There is a $20/month minimum spending requirement and a minimum bid per click of $0.10. Advertise your Web site with Yahoo! Sponsored Search. Sign up and get a $25 credit into your new account. Learn more.
4 out of 4 stars.
Google Adwords has become a mainstay of pay per click search engine advertising. AdWords works slightly differently from the usual pay per click programs listed here. With the Adwords program, a brief description of your site is displayed both on Google's search results pages and on other people's web sites, with the ads selected to match the content of the web pages. You get to set your global budget as well as the amount you are willing to pay per click. Find out more about Google AdWords. 4 out of 4 stars.
7Search is a cost effective choice of PPC searchengine listing for marketing on a budget. 7Search usually has a significant cost advantage over Overture in the cost of per-click bids required for specific search terms. The minimum deposit to activate your account is only $25 and per-click bids can start as low as $0.01 - compared to a minimum bid of $0.10 at Overture. 7Search offers instant activation - sign up and charge your deposit to your credit card, and your site will appear immediately in their search results! Be a 7Search.com Advertiser! 3 out of 4 stars
FindWhat is another very good pay per click search engine, whose results are displayed on CNET's Search.com, Excite, Webcrawler, NBCi, MetaCrawler, Dogpile, and Go2Net. Minimum bids are $0.01. The traffic is less than Overture, but the cost per click is much lower, making for cost effectiveness in your searchengine marketing budget. Advertise with FindWhat.com and expect high ROI from your PPC advertising campaign.
3 out of 4 stars.
Kanoodle.com is a popular bid for placement search engine, whose results appear on 10,000 sites. Their site is one of the least informative for a novice to PPC advertising, with much less detailed information available. To advertise now with Kanoodle.com Click here 1 out of 4 stars.
Flat Fee Pay Per Click programs are very cost effective when you would have to pay very high per click charges in one of the bid-for-position services for popular key words. However, they are less effective for when the bid-for-position cost is below about $0.40. The reason is flat fee services include you in the search results for a wide range of search results, which means you are paying for less targeted (and sometimes irrelevant) traffic.
Yahoo's Search Submit Express (formerly Site Match) is a solid choice for flat-fee PPC program, as it provides web search results for Yahoo!, Altavista, About.com, and other major search sites. While the Precision Match service above allows one to bid on exact rankings for specific keywords, the Site Match service indexes the ful content of each page you register and it can then appear in the search results of a wider range of keywords, according to Yahoo's search algorithms. Site Match requires an annual listing fee as well as flat-rate per click fees. The listing fee is reasonable at $49/year for the first URL, $29 for URLs 2-10 and $10 for 11+ URLs submitted for the same site. Your site is indexed within 4 days and then re-indexed every 48 hours for the rest of the year - this ensures that any changes you make to your pages are reflected in the search database. In addition to the sign up fee, you are charged a per click fee of 15 or 30 cents, depending upon your web site's category. This service provides excellent reach and has the potential to provide your site with good traffic. Promote your site with Search Submit 3 out of 4 stars.
Mamma.com is popular PPC search engine, with considerable reach. It has a low sign-up deposit of $25, but their flat rate for click is quite expensive and based on the category of your site's content: from $0.18 per click for shopping sites to $0.55 for business & insurance sites, and $1.00 per click for casinos. To find out more about Mamma, Click here.
3 out of 4 stars.LookSmart is a searchable directory, like Yahoo, that provides the basis for the directories at MSN and other major sites. There is no listing fee. The first 5000 clicks per month are billed at $0.15, but after that they vary from $0.23 to $0.75 depending on the category of your web site's content. LookSmart has a high traffic base and should be considered by larger businesses and those with high margins. Submit to LookSmart 1 out of 4 stars.
TIPS! - While you might think it is always best to bid on the the most popular keywords that relate to your site, it can often be more cost effective to bid on less popular keywords. You can afford to place higher in the results and pay less per click. Remember to watch your ROI - return on investment. The cost of generating traffic to your site must be less than the revenue you make from those visitors.
An excellent tool to help you find the right key words to focus on is Good Keywords. You can download Good Keywords for free and look up all the combination of search terms that included a certain key word, plus discover how many people searched for those terms in the previous month on the Overture network. As a bonus, Good Keywords also provides information on the traffic and links to any URL on the web - analyze your own growth or watch your competitors! Good Keywords works on all Windows systems.
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