What are pay per click, etc...?
A Pay Per Click (PPC) - also known as Pay Per Ranking, Pay Per Placement or Pay Per Position - search engine enables you to list your site at the top of the search engine results for a paid amount.

You pay only when a browser user clicks on your listing and connects to your site. You do not pay to be listed, you only pay for the click throughs.

You chose keywords that refer to your product or service on your web site. For each keyword you determine how much you are willing to spend per click through. The higher you bid the higher you will appear in the search results.

PPC search engines usually combine paid listings with unpaid listings to ensure any given search produces sufficient results. Typically, unpaid listings (also known in the industry as ‘fodder’) are provided by another search engine such as Inktomi, Google or the DMOZ project.

Most of the PPC search engines list the bid price in the results pages. Overture is the leading exponent of PPC market, and its "PPC advertisers" feature on many Search Engines - bids however start from $0.05 per click.

Top Pay per Click Engines
Overture has extremely successful and offers good value. Google has added to its Pay per Ranking program with 2 new schemes: Premium Sponsorships and Adwords Select. The former allows 2 "ads" at the top of the page whereas the Adwords select display ads on the right hand page area. Google is an expensive option!

It is also worth getting onboard some of the rising stars as they have low click charges! Try mySearchEngineRanking.com.

Is it worth it?
An account with a PPC search engine is a great way to drive targeted traffic to your site because you only pay for actual clicks to your site. It is risk free and a cheaper alternative to listing with the bigger search engines. Beware of some of the cheaper services - there are schemes where users are "paid" to click!!

The alternatives to PPC - Pay per Ranking, etc.
Pay per Ranking, etc. on search engines like AltaVista, Yahoo and Google get lots of traffic but they are expensive. For example, with Google it will cost you $1500 for keywords per month with a three month minimum, so that’s $4500 with no clicks guaranteed. All you are getting is exposure just like a normal advert but in the appropriate context.

Tools
You need a tool to track your "bids", and make sure you are not paying too much for those click-thrus. We suggest you investigate the GoToast tool. This enables you to keep top positions without paying too much. This tool pay for itself!
 

mySearchEngineRanking.com believe that "Pay per Click" advertising is good value. Using the appropriate techniques, choice of good keywords/phrases, and the correct choice of text within the body of the text for the listing can deliver profitable results. Using experts can reduce the cost, and ensure that a "pay per click" campaign delivers good value and results.