Many of you have probably heard of pay per click advertising.   In a nutshell, pay per click advertising allows you to create advertisements on search engines such as Google or Yahoo.  The advertisements can be displayed based on what keywords or phrases you choose when creating your ad. Sounds easy, right?  Not so fast!

Since Google is arguably the largest web-based global marketing network, we'll examine PPC (pay per click) using Google.  Google calls their PPC service Adwords.  Adwords is a very robust service with many features and opportunities.  Done right, and Adwords can be great addition to marketing your business. Done incorrectly, and you can pay large sums of cash while seeing a zero increase in lead generation.

As the name goes, pay per click is exactly that, you pay when a visitor clicks on your advertisement.  Those PPC fees can be as low as 10 cents a click or well over $10 a click, depending on your keywords or phrases. But wait, there's more.  Google penalizes you if your ad is not consistant with your chosen keywords.  Google 'ranks'  each ad you create which essentially determines where your ad will be placed and how much you'll pay if a visitor clicks on it. And you thought this was going to be easy!

So, is pay per click worth it?  That depends.  If your site is relatively new or if you're focusing your services in a new location, you'll want to get your name out there quickly with PPC. Obviously, quality website Search Engine Optimization (SEO) will lead to the best bang for your buck down the road.  If you decide to use PPC, you can rapidly increase lead generation and sales with proper keywords and ad design.  On the other hand, if you're new to the game, PPC can be a costly marketing campaign which produces very little in return.