Sponsored Search or “Pay per Click” give advertisers the opportunity to bid for placement of text ads on the major search engines. Advertisers may bid for the individual keywords they select and pay only when a user clicks through to an advertiser’s web site.

The two primary PPC services are Google Ad Words and Yahoo Sponsored Search. The major search engines run ads distributed by one of these two services except for MSN which launched its own ad serving platform, AdCenter, in May 2006.

Although Pay per Click is a paid advertising service, there are several advantages over SEO:

• The potential for increasing qualified traffic is generally greater than SEO
• A campaign can be launched and begin generating qualified traffic with a few hours of preparation.
• Advertisers control their budget, ad copy and targeted distribution

Results are highly measurable including precise return on investment by keyword, enabling continuous refinement of your campaign.

By contrast, the primary advantage of SEO is that once an effective program is underway, there is no cost for the incremental traffic gained. Of course, SEO and PPC are complimentary, and many companies with smart online strategies employ both methods of driving qualified traffic to their web site.