1.3. CPC ADVERTISING

With CPC (also known as pay per click, or PPC), you list the keywords related to your product or service and specify how much you're willing to pay for each visit to your site. In some cases, you can also specify the specific sites and pages you want the ads to run on (or not to run on).

Your advertisements are then displayed on sites that are determined to be related to your keywords (and/or the sites you specified), and you incur an advertising cost only when and if someone clicks on one of your advertisements. Costs are determined largely by supply and demand—the more popular the keyword that generated the click, the more you will pay for the visit.

While there are literally hundreds of pay-per-click search engines, you should focus on the main three to begin with:

Successful PPC advertising is a topic unto itself—entire books have been written to explain its strategies and nuances. Be sure to read the section on "PPC Advertising" for more resources related to this method of advertising.

Get The Little Black Book of Online Business: 1001 Insider Resources Every Business Owner Needs now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.