One of the easiest, but of course most expensive, ways to drive traffic is through Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. PPC advertising often takes the form of purchasing keywords from companies like Google, Yahoo (Overture), Microsoft Live, Search Feed, etc. Buying keywords will usually get you one of two things (and sometimes both), content matching and search matching.

Content Matching

Content Matching will match and display keywords that match the content of the page they are shown on. You still select the keywords that will be targeted, but these ads will show up on pages throughout the internet by independent websites who choose to show ads on their pages, blogs, etc.

Search Matching

These ads will show up when users search on the specified keywords for the given search engine being used.

For some sites we've done, all inital website traffic was generated through PPC advertising. Search engines often take a good deal of time to begin indexing new sites and driving traffic. As such, PPC is an excellent way to reach a targeted audiance of users immediately. There are two main keys to a successful advertising campaign:

1. Keyword Selection - Identifying keywords that will enable you to draw in not only interested customers, but buying customers, is very important. In addition, identifying keywords that are worth their costs, is crutial to success.
2. Monitor Progress - Monitor the progress and the cost of your keywords, in addition to what the traffic from each is doing. In order to accomplish this, a user tracking tool like Stat Counter or Google Analytics is a must.

Advertising

Advertising is simple, just sign up with the advertisers and they will guide you through picking keywords and showing you prices and estimated traffic. We recommend starting with one of the following top advertising programs. The majority of our advertising dollars are currently spent with these programs: