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Does advertising in PPC search engines really
work?
Maybe you've considered using pay per click (PPC) search
engines to promote your web site on the Internet. PPC search
engines are search engines that allow you to bid for a special
position on their result pages. You pay a certain amount for
every click your listing receives.
The site PayPerClickSearchEngines.com lists more than 500
pay per click search engines, however, there are only three
big PPC engines that are worth your time and effort:
1. Overture
Overture is the biggest and most important PPC search engine
worldwide. Overture listings appear on Yahoo, Lycos, AltaVista,
InfoSpace, MSN Search and on many smaller sites.
Overture has recently introduced it's "Content Match"
program. When someone visits a site like MSN and views content
pages (such as articles), Overture will provide relevant
listings on the same page.
2. Espotting/FindWhat
Espotting is the biggest European pay per click search
engine provider. They have local search engines in all important
European countries. Espotting listings appear on the European
versions of Yahoo, Lycos, AskJeeves, AllTheWeb and many
other major European search engines.
Espotting is going to merge with the US search engine FindWhat
later this year.
3. Kanoodle
Kanoodle is smaller than Overture or Espotting, but with
14,000 customers, it's still larger than most other pay
per click search engines. Kanoodle listings appear on CNet,
HotBar, Galaxy and many other smaller sites.
The bids on Kanoodle are not as expensive as on the other
two PPC search engines. In addition, Kanoodle doesn't require
an initial deposit but they give you US$5 for free so that
you can test their search engine risk-free.
But does it make sense to advertise on these search engines?
It all comes down to your visitor/sales conversion rate and
the price of your products. To determine the usefulness of
bidding on pay per click search engines, you must constantly
monitor your bids. Only then you can know if PPC advertising
works for your site.
Pay per click advertising can quickly become very expensive,
for example the current top bid for the search term "data
recovery" on Overture is US$5.15. That means that the
advertiser pays US5.15 every time a web surfer clicks on his
listing. For 100 visitors, that advertiser pays US$515.00.
If these visitors don't become customers, it's wasted money.
Advertising your web site on PPC search engines can contribute
to your web site promotion campaign. However, you should take
care that you don't pay too much per click and that you get
a positive return on investment.
A recent
study from Consumer WebWatch showed that web surfers prefer
non-paid listings. For this reason, high rankings in search
engines still matter and they cost less, too.
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