PPC Search Engines;

In Part 1 of this series, we discussed the basics of Pay Per Click Search Engines (aka "PPC"). In this installment, were going to discuss some of the major players in the industry and what it takes to get started with an account of your own.

1) Overture.com: Formerly known as Goto.com, they were the first PPC in existence, and still the best. Youll get maximum impact for your money with Overture. You can open an account using the "self serve option" for only $50.00. Minimum bid is 5 cents with a $20.00 monthly minimum spend. That means if you rack up less then $20.00 in clicks youll still be billed for the $20.00. The amount you bid determines your ranking in this search engine.

For maximum impact youll want to try to bid into the top 3 positions (called "premium listings"), as these spots are shown on some of the major search engines such as Yahoo, MSN, Altavista, Lycos/Hotbot, and others (usually under the heading of "sponsored listings"). This makes for great exposure due to these extensive relationships with the majors.

2) Google.com -Ad Words Select: Recently joining the arena of PPC with their new program "Ad Words Select," Google is aiming to give Overture a run for their money. Their program works slightly differently then Overtures; in some ways its even better. To open an account youll need to invest $5.00 and create short text ads. When searches are done on Google for your keywords/phrases, your ads will show up in the right hand column on the results page.

Unlike Overture, the position of your ads is based on two factors: the amount of your bid, and the clickthru rate your ad receives. Google recently made a deal with AOL to show the top 3 Ad Words Select listings on AOL Search, along with Earthlink and Sympatico. This really extends Googles reach and gives your site a chance to be seen by AOLs 33 million users.

Minimum cost per click is 5 cents and you can set up a maximum daily spend amount if youre on a tight budget. Ads can be updated or changed whenever you like by logging into the control panel.

Beware of Googles Editors, who are a tough crowd to please and will block your ads if they dont meet their "strict guidelines." One thing they dont allow is all caps in your URL. For example they wont let you put "YourDomain.com" in your ad as they feel this is "excessive capitalization." So youll have to settle for "yourdomain.com." I told you they were tough.

3) LookSmart.com: Theyre not looking too smart these days after they angered many of their existing customers by changing them over from a pay-for-submission to a PPC model. They call the new program "LookListings Small Business." To open an account youll pay a $49.00 set-up fee plus a refundable deposit of $150.00. Click thrus are all charged the same amount of .15, so your bid wont buy you any kind of position. Youll need to rely on relevant keywords and a great title and description for best placement. Unlike Overture, youll find no bidding wars here.

LookSmarts search engine partners include MSN, Netscape, Altavista, Prodigy and CNN.com

You set a monthly spend amount and LookSmart emails reports each month of all activities.

4) FindWhat.com: Launched in Sept of 1999 and serving up over 22 million searches per day. Since FindWhat is not as well known, you can bid on many keywords for much less than you would pay for them with Overture. To activate an account youll need to deposit $25.00. Payment can be made by check or credit card. No minimum monthly spends are required here. Minimum bid amount is 1 cent.

They do run an affiliate program whose sponsors show their search results. Some of their affiliates and partners are: Mamma.com, Dogpile, MetaCrawler and CNETs Search.com. But to be shown on these sites youll need to bid into the top 3 positions. FindWhat also has a reputation for offering excellent customer service.

5) Kanoodle.com: Currently receiving over 410 million searches per month. Other sites that pull from Kanoodles paid listings are MetaCrawler, Mamma.com and Netzero as well as 9,800 "other" search enabled sites.

Minimum amount needed to open an account is $25.00. Minimum bid is 1 cent. Can be paid by credit card or check. With only 1 cent per click, you can bid on a lot of keywords and make your marketing dollars go a lot further.

If youre interested in checking out a few others, here are some that are not as well known but will give you free advertising money just for opening up a new account:

http://www.Ban-X.com ($50.00)
http://www.CoreFind.com ($100.00)
http://www.searchanytime.com/ ($10.00)
http://www.stanico.com/ ($50.00)
http://www.najula.com/ Buy 10.00 and theyll give you
an extra $30.00
http://www.jjump.com- Whatever amount you deposit
theyll match it.

Some other popular PPCs to investigate are:

http://www.7Search.com
http://www.Ah-Ha.com
http://www.Epilot.com
http://www.Sprinks.com

Other Helpful Tools

Free E-book Explains The Basics of PPC Search Engines
http://shoptour.co.uk/downloads/PPC-SearchEngines-Primer.exe

Enter Keywords youre interested in bidding on and theyll show you the top 6 bids for 11 of the major PPC engines
http://www.CompareYourClicks.com/links/bidgap.pl

To get traffic to your website you need to utilize many different promotional tactics. Incorporating a good PPC search engine strategy will send you highly qualified traffic for pennies on the dollar, and the best part is you only pay when they "Click."

In Part 3 of this series well discuss some tools that will make managing your PPC bids a snap.

About the author

Merle (just Merle, thank you) is an experienced Internet Marketer/Promoter. She knows what it takes for business websites to be successful. She has been online for over four years and has two other websites to her credit: MC Promotions - http://www.mcpromotions.com and Merles World - http://www.merlesworld.com

merle@mcpromotions.com
http://www.marketingchallenge.com