PPC: Pay Per click

Pay Per click (PPC) is the most effective paid method of Online advertising on keywords that describes the service or product of the website which enables to list the site at the top of the search engine results page (SERPs). The advertiser of the website should pay to the host when the visitor clicks on the listing or the advertisement which are displayed and connects the website. The term "pay per click" means an amount will be paid by the advertiser when the visitor clicks on the ad.

Pay Per click method of advertising on Internet is a great way to drive targeted visitors to the website because the advertiser pays only for the actual clicks to the site and it allows getting maximum exposure, the advertiser can control and calculate the amount that they want to spend on marketing campaign. The effectiveness of the ad campaign (PPC) can be tracked clearly.

PPC ads are also known as sponsored listing that appears at the top, right or bottom of search engines result pages which helps the visitors to visit the website immediately for the desired keywords.

Advantages of PPC:
Rapid Promotion: Since, the initial investment for this promotional activity is less; PPC benefits the new websites for immediate promotions and also to attain good results soon.

Easy Execution: The PPC ads given go live and can be added, edited and deleted at anytime. This is method of online advertisement can be implemented easily as PPC doesn't require any modifications on the website. This is can be executed easily drive quality traffic to the website.

Long term Value: As the host charges the advertiser for every click to a site, PPC will remain a constant cost for a business. Whereas, an optimization project can provide a long term value after the initial work compared to PPC.

Visitors Tracking at Ease: Pay Per Click makes it easy to track the response rate of the site, whereas the, traditional offline advertising methods was difficult to track whether the given advertisement is reaching the set target visitors. PPC can maximize the marketing money because the advertiser is paying only for quality leads that actually achieve the goal of the business. Also it provides feedback instantly for the response received through the ads and how many of those contacts are converting to sales. With monthly metrics, we can see who is clicking on the ad and can update the advertising strategy to maximize the results.

Risks: Pay-per-click advertising bears few significant disadvantages, some of which are discussed. A good PPC campaign can drive lots of targeted traffic to the site but if the site doesn't convert those visitors then it will be a wasted expense. Bid inflation is also one of the disadvantages of PPC, the bid based model can create risk in this advertising method. Thirdly, PPC click fraud is an Internet crime that involves a person or computer or computer program imitating a real person and clicking on paid links without actually having any interest in the topic of the links. Thorough campaign monitoring is vital if an advertiser is going to detect, and receive compensate for PPC Click fraud.