1. How does a PCP engine work?
Pay per click search engines (also called pay-for-performance, paid listings among other names) are engines which allow site owners to determine their sites ranking in that particular search engines results by bidding on keywords.
The concept of PPC bidding is rather simple: you buy (bid on) keywords that relate to your product. For example, you will bid on "renting holiday homes" or "selling houses in Dallas."
Do not bid on your name or the name of your real estate agency.
The highest bidder gets placed at the top of the search results, the second highest bidder gets the next listing and so on. Every time someone clicks through to your website, you pay the amount you bid on that particular search term.
The more times a word or phrase has been searched for, the higher you will have to bid to get top rankings. The only limitation is that your site must be at least vaguely relevant to the keyword you want to bid on. These engines allow you to skip all the search engine optimization stuff and simply pay for visitors.
Usually the first three or five search results are used by a network of partner search sites. The result for the site owner or webmaster is a lot more highly targeted traffic and a lot more sales.
Pay per click search engines have a number of benefits to any site owner:
· Only pay for visitors - unlike banner advertising where you have to pay each time someone sees your ad, on pay-per-click engines you only have to pay when someone clicks on your listing. So you are getting guaranteed visits.
· Pay-per-click engines provide highly targeted cheap visitors - often you can buy a good ranking on a decent keyword for as little as 1 cent or 2 cents per click.
· Fast exposure and immediate profit - most of PPC search engines will set your website live within a couple of hours (maximum few days) and the impact on your site traffic and sales is practically immediate.
· Guaranteed top position - bidding for rank will certainly save you a lot of time otherwise spent in search engine optimization techniques.
2. What are the best PCP engines?
The best-known and most popular PPC Search Engines are Google AdWords and Overture. Advertising with those two industry leaders will get your website lots of exposure and traffic. Furthermore, top 3 listings in Google AdWords and Overture appear on an extensive network of sites (including Yahoo!, MSN, AltaVista, Excite, and many others) so you can reach up to 80% of all active Internet users. However, at the same time be prepared that their top listings tend to be rather expensive and you need to pay quite a bit.
3. Other less known PCP engines are:
FindWhat
GoClick
Espotting (biggest PPC engine in UK and European market)
7Search.com
Kanoodle.com
Enhance Interactive
Sprinks
Bids on these less popular PPC search engines are much cheaper and you can purchase your listings for as little as one cent per visitor. Even though you may not get the same exposure as you would get with Overture and Google, you still generate a decent amount of traffic. And while you only pay for actual clicks to your website, you never waste your money.
Important: Your links will appear on the search page in a "Sponsored links" section, not in the regular list.
