Pay per click, or PPC, is a popular advertising technique used on the internet that is found on websites, advertising networks, and especially search engines. PPC advertising involves sponsored links that are typically in the form of text ads. These are usually placed close to search results, where an advertiser pays a particular amount to visitors who click on these links or banners and land on the advertiser's web page. Pay per click can also be known as pay per placement, pay per performance, pay per ranking, pay per position, or cost per click.

In essence, PPC advertising is all about bidding for the top or leading position on search engine results and listings. Advertisers do this by buying or bidding on keyword phrases that are relevant to their product or services. The higher the bid, the higher the spot on the search results, more people will find the ad and click on it to go to their website. Advertisers would then pay the bidding price every time a visitor clicks through the website.

There are many benefits to PPC advertising which in turn makes it an effective way of promoting a business, especially an online business. One benefit of PPC is advertisements get launched almost immediately. Once ad is set-up they can be implemented in most cases with-in the hour. By using PPC, it provides you with quality traffic or well-targeted traffic to your site which is another advantage. Also you can widen your reach. Another benefit is that you can track your investment .You will be able to see exactly how your keywords and ads are tracking. This is a valuable tool since you can see your return on investment by using the statistics from your PPC campaign.

Pay per click is relatively easy to set up. You would need to determine which search engine you would use for your ads. You would set up an account with them. Then you would create ad copy, determine your keywords related to your product or service, and set your maximum bid per click. There are several things you need to consider when planning your pay per click campaign:

1. Know your product.

2. Stay within budget. Determine your daily or monthly budget and stay with it. You may have to re-access it from month to month once you see how your ads are going.

3. Watch your bottom line. Measure your profit margin against your spending and expenses. Make sure you are not spending more on pay per click campaigns than you are getting back in sales from the campaign.

4. Choose your keywords wisely. This may require doing some research, either by actually looking at existing search terms or with the use of online keyword suggestion tools, to know which terms are mostly used when searching for items that are related to your business. A good rule of thumb is to focus on specific ones no general keywords.

5. Write effective ads. A good pay per click ad is one that can persuade a searcher to click on it. There are several approaches to this: Discount offers Testimonials Celebrity/famous Endorsers Money-back Guarantees Free trials or Sample Offers Freebies Reverse Psychology Major Benefits Direct Instructions

6. Maintain a professional looking site. Your web content should be regularly updated and grammatically correct. There should be no broken links or images. It should be designed in such a way that it will be easy for visitors to navigate and load. And don't forget to include contact details so as to create a good impression for potential customers.

When done properly, pay per click advertising can be an effective marketing tool that will maximize your business potential.