In this age of speed dialing, T1 lines and other forms of high-tech instant gratification, many webmasters find themselves tempted to engage in pay-per-click advertising. After all, if you’ve just designed a state-of-the-art website, there’s nothing quite as gratifying as a steady stream of traffic right from start. Webmasters with open wallets have found that pay-per-click can provide traffic within hours or even minutes of a website’s launch.

Pay-per-click Pros

Before considering perils and pitfalls of pay-per-click, it’s worthwhile to remember that in some instances, pay-per-click is a good market strategy. A number of reputable SEO firms combine pay-per-click management with search engine optimization as a method of getting their clients clicks they need. Pay-per-click can be an especially effective strategy for:

•companies trying to beat a competitor to market with a new product who want to garner substantial traffic while waiting for their SEO efforts to kick in •webmasters with deep pockets who are more concerned about establishing a quick presence than long-term return on investment •webmasters who are reaping a return on investment high enough to justify expenditures on pay-per-click

Significant Drawbacks

Although there are valid reasons to engage in pay-per-click advertising campaigns, there are also enough drawbacks to give any webmaster pause.

Companies considering pay-per-click need to determine primary purpose of their marketing campaign—whether it be immediate sales, building website value, or a combination of two. If immediate sales is goal and a worthwhile return on investment is being achieved, pay-per-click may be strategy of choice—at least until good search engine positioning can be obtained.

Webmasters seeking to build a valuable web-based business should remember that whenever money “spigot” for pay-per-click stops, so do clicks. In contrast, clicks resulting from an investment in search engine optimization will continue for months and possibly years to come.

Monitoring ROI