Spam

The surefire way of getting your site blacklisted from major search engines. Many people see creating thousands of cloaked or doorway pages with hidden text as quick route to ranking success. It isn't.

Untargeted Traffic

It's one thing to generate lots of new traffic to your site, but is it right traffic? If you're selling DVD's for example, you want potential buyers to visit, not people who are searching for pictures of a certain movie star. Best to make it clear in your meta information exactly what your site does, then you'll get type of clientele you're after!

Single Keywords

Unless you're in some incredible niche marketplace where a single word can only be identified with your product with few competitors, single keywords aren't going to hit bullseye in a traffic sense. Multiple word keyword phrases are key to traffic success. Instead of going for "books", go for "thai recipe books" or whatever your target market is. You'll have far less competition for that keyword phrase than just a single word. Believe us, we've worked on a bookseller's site.

Poor Design

There's no way around this one. You can have best rankings in world, but if your site looks bad, you'll lose that traffic as soon as it arrives. Good, simple, clean design always wins - sloppy design and gimmicks don't!

I Don't Need Links

Oh yes you do. Links are crucial to traffic building game. Without links to your site from others (if they're competitors, even better), good meta information won't be enough. Most search engines will rank your webpage according to its popularity with its peers. if a lot of sites link to yours, it must be good, so Google & Co. will boost your rating (link popularity algorithms). Read our dedicated article here.

Messy Meta Tags

But with literally hundreds of choices, how do you pick pay- per-click engine with best visibility that has potential of giving you a higher return on your investment?

And, just as important, what are some strategies for working with pay-per-click engines, and how do they operate?

How do Pay-Per-Click Engines Operate?

With pay-per-click engines, you bid on keywords that describe your business, your products, or your target audience. Then, you’re charged your bid price every time someone clicks on your ad, which is displayed when a searcher types in keyword you’ve chosen into search box at an engine. Whoever is willing to pay most for keyword or keyword phrase will be at top of rankings.

There are many benefits to working with pay engines, which we’ll cover in this article.

Important Pay-Per-Click Engines and Directories

Overture: http://www.overture.com

Overture is certainly pay-per-click engine that most people recognize. It’s also one of most expensive and competitive.

However, visibility of Overture is impressive, to say least. It provides top two or three results to “big boy” search engines and directories like Yahoo!, Lycos, HotBot, and MSN Search. In fact, Overture claims to reach 80% of all Internet users.

Overture listings are generally found at top of regular search results in an area called “Sponsored” results or sites.

Overture’s pay-per-clicks operate under one premise: whoever has deepest pockets and is willing to pay most gets on top.

The minimum bid is $.10, and there’s a minimum charge of $20 per month. A $50 initial deposit is non-refundable and will be applied to click throughs or to minimum monthly spend. When your account is depleted, they’ll contact you to see if you want to add additional funds to your budget.

Google AdWords http://www.google.com/ads/

Google AdWords have fast become extremely important in pay- per-click arena, with results being shown at search engines like Google, AOL Search, Ask Jeeves, and Teoma.

Google AdWords operates differently than Overture in a number of ways. Your click-through rate and cost per click together determine where your ads are shown, so better ads rise to top. That means no one can lock you out of top position.

Google AdWords are shown on right-hand side of regular search results in a pink shaded area called “Sponsored Links.”

Because your click through rate has an influence on placement of your AdWords ad, your ad’s title and description must be captivating and designed to pull in traffic.

With Google AdWords, there’s a $5 activation fee, and minimum bid amount is $.05. You decide on maximum cost per click that you’re willing to pay and set your daily budget. You don’t have to spend a certain amount per month, and you only pay for clicks you actually receive.

FindWhat http://www.findwhat.com

Another popular pay-per-click engine that is generally much less expensive than Overture is FindWhat.

With FindWhat, whoever bids most gets on top. The minimum bid is $.05, and they require a $25 minimum amount to open an account.

FindWhat provides results to 200 different partners, including many of big meta engines like Dogpile.

Lycos InSite AdBuyer http://insite.lycos.com/searchservices/adbuyer/overview.asp

A fairly new pay-per-click program that’s displayed on both Lycos and HotBot is Lycos InSite AdBuyer.

Again, it operates similarly to way that Overture and FindWhat operate, with top results being those who bid most for their target keywords.

The minimum bid is $.05 with a $50 minimum to open an account.

LookSmart http://www.looksmart.com

LookSmart is a pay-per-click directory where you pay a flat $.l5 per click through. It claims to reach 77% of Internet users through partners that display LookSmart results.

Some of those partners include MSN Search, About.com, Netscape, and AltaVista.

With LookSmart, you don’t bid for listings. Everyone pays a flat $.15 per click through, and your ranking is determined by how relevant your site is to search term, according to LookSmart’s ranking criteria. To get started with a LookSmart listing, initial investment is $29.

Other Pay-Per-Click Engines http://www.payperclicksearchengines.com/