Search Engine Marketing

One of the most important aspects of Search Engine Marketing is the concept of “pay per click” (PPC). Companies are awarded revenue based on how often advertisements are clicked by readers and users on their websites. Bloggers, journalists and other Internet content providers can choose to finance their work spent on providing content by contacting advertisers and inviting them to place ads on the websites the providers are responsible for. One of the most successful models is the pay per click model (PPC) and it is also what the entire Google Adsense concept is based upon.

How it works in detail

When an Internet content provider creates new material for the web, they may choose the option of also putting textual or image-based advertisements on their websites. These ads, which take up a certain amount of real estate on the website, also have complex tracking algorithms embedded in them, which will show the advertising party a timestamp and usually an IP address of the person who clicked on the advertisement. This data is then aggregated and for each click, the original content creator will receive a certain predetermined amount per month. Content sites most often charge a fixed price per click rather than other systems as this is the most efficient overall.

Flat rate vs Bid based PPC

Flat rate, predetermined PPC has already been mentioned, but there is another system that some advertisers use. This is basically a bid-based model, in which an advertiser is allowed to compete against other advertisers in a private auction that is set up by the publisher — or in other words, this is an advertising network. Every advertiser informs the host about the maximum dollar value that they are willing to shell out for an advertising place (this is based on the concept of keywords). The auction takes place automatically in the background every time a visitor to the provider’s website clicks on the advertisement.

What companies offer PPC advertising opportunities?

Google AdWords is the main provider of search engine marketing (PPC). Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter are also not far behind and all three of these operate the second, bid-based model. Someone who is interested in generating revenue from advertisements, or a product or service provider who is interested in generating more visitors and sales through providers would do well to get acquainted with and set their system up on all three of these major networks.

Scams and abuse

Unfortunately, the PPC and Search Engine Marketing systems are quite susceptible to both abuse and fraud. This is most often done by artificially inflating the amount of clicks made on an advertisement. A number of methods can be used to bring about this fraud, such as:

• calling readers of a site to click at certain periods of time
• setting up automated clicking programs that randomize IPs

Google and the other main providers of Search Engine Marketing (PPC) have developed complex algorithms and systems to detect and eliminate this kind of fraud and if discovered, providers will be penalized.