Thread: Search Engine Advertising

If you don't want to wait months for SEO benefits to kick in, consider adver¬tising on search engines. This approach can increase site traffic within a day.
The easiest and most popular type of search engine advertising to set up is the pay-per-click (PPC) text ad. You write short text ads that appear next to the search results for specific terms or keywords that people enter in a search engine; then you pay for each visitor who clicks your ad and jumps to your site.

According to the Web traffic information company Alexa, the most popular search engines in India are Google, Yahoo and Rediff. Given Google's dominance, PPC ads on Google AdWords are likely to deliver the great¬est number of visitors to your site.
Running PPC ads on Yahoo and Microsoft, however, will increase your advertising reach and may cost less for certain search keywords.



The cost can range from a few cents to several dollars per click, depending on advertiser demand for keywords. You may set a daily or monthly maxi¬mum charge to ensure that you don't exceed your budget.

Crafting your PPC ad is a bit like writ¬ing a two-line classified newspaper ad with a heading. Choose your phrasing and keywords carefully to attract the visitors you want. Test several ads to determine which works best.

Finally, if you sell only locally, don't waste money advertising nationwide. Use the service's geotargeting capabili¬ty to restrict ads to visitors from a lim¬ited area, such as your city or state.