Search Engine Optimization All-In-One For Dummies®

Chapter 3. Exploiting Pay Per Click Lessons Learned

In This Chapter

• Analyzing pay per click campaigns

• Testing keywords through pay per click ads

• Building your brand with pay per click ads

• Eliminating low click-through keywords

• Overlapping paid ads with organic ranking to reduce costs

Buying pay per click ads can be a useful part of your overall search engine optimization strategy. Pay per click (which are paid ads, showing up under "sponsored links" on a search results page, that site owners have negotiated with the search engine to display when certain keywords are searched) can complement the work you're doing to move your listing up in the organic results (the normal search results). And because it's relatively fast to set up pay per click ads, they can be an easy way to jumpstart your Web site's performance in search results.

To buy a pay per click ad, you go to the chosen search engine's paid search Web site (listed in Book I, Chapter 4 under "Paid Search Results") and bid on a particular keyword phrase that you would like your ad to display for. From then on, the search engine tracks how many times people click your ad, and bills you monthly for the total clicks. Generally, the highest bidders are awarded the top positions on the search results (though with Google, some relevance factors do affect the order). For more information on buying pay per click ads, you could pick up a copy of Pay Per Click Search Engine Marketing for Dummies by Peter Kent (published by Wiley). In this chapter, ...