PPC stands for Pay Per Click – a popular advertising technique on the Internet. It is found on websites, advertising networks, and especially on search engines. You pay when a prospective customer clicks on the link.

 PPC advertising involves sponsored links that are typically in the form of text ads. These are usually placed close to organic search results. So a computer user types in a keyword or phrase, like Xbox repair manual, and can get both the results ranked as the top sites by the search engine, according to their own criteria, and the ads which are relevant to that topic. The advertiser pays a particular amount to visitors who click on these links or banners and land on the advertiser’s web page.

In essence, PPC advertising is all about bidding for the top or leading positions on search engine results and listings. Advertisers do this by buying or bidding on keywords and keyword phrases that are relevant to their products or services.

 The higher the bid, the higher the spot on the search results, the more the people will see the ad (and possibly click on it) to go to their websites (this is why some people call it “keyword auctioning”).

 Advertisers then pay the bidding price every time a visitor clicks through the website. 

Each search engine positions their ads differently, but generally they are on the top or the side. Many people wish to be the top ad in the list, but that can result in automatic clicking, or confusion as to whether or not the result is an ad or an organic site.

 
Prices can range from pennies, to hundred of dollars for clicks.

 
PPC advertising is also known under the following names/variations:

 
·           Pay per placement

·           Pay per performance

·           Pay per ranking

·           Pay per position

·           Cost per click (CPC)