Pay-per-click (PPC) search engines are a highly effective and inexpensive way to attract targeted traffic to your web site. With the most popular PPC search engines (www.overture.com and www.adwords.google.com) you can often buy this search engine traffic for 10 cents or 5 cents per click. It is possible to bid for keywords for as little as $0.01 per click with some of the less popular PPC search engines! This means that you can get 500 visitors to your website for just $5!

Below are some strategies that you can use to consistently get a steady flow of traffic to your website and increase your sales.

1. Focus on one item or product that you want to promote
Promoting your entire list of programs or products will be more expensive and get you less targeted traffic. Instead, choose a product and promote that. You can promote other products or programs separately. Each click through should direct your visitor to the specific program or product that you're selling. This will ensure that you will have less competition in bidding for very focused keywords and a higher likelihood of reaching really interested customers. Avoid directing your customers to a web page that is likely to confuse them or where they'll have to start looking for the advertised product. Most customers simply do not have the time.

2. Find out what the traffic is like for your desired keywords.
Most pay per click search engines have a page where you can see what and how many times a keyword was searched for in the previous month. Remember a keyword that was popular in June may not be as popular in July or August. These reports must be used as a guide. I have found that any relevant keyword attracting more than 50 clicks per month is worth bidding on.

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3. Strategize before placing your bid.
Now that you know what you want to promote and what keywords to use, you need an effective strategy to make your campaign profitable. As a general guide, avoid bids that are too high unless you have a huge advertising budget and your product converts well. Instead, aim to bid for less popular low-cost, relevant keywords. They produce a better return than the popular ones.

4. For the more popular keywords, bid for a lower and less expensive position
When you search on a keyword, most PPC search engine results will also show you what each advertiser is paying for their position. Remember you don't always have to be first. If one advertiser is paying $0.25 for the first position and the second advertiser is paying $0.12, you can get third place for only $0.11. A good tip is to aim for the first page, even if you're in position 15! Most surfers quickly scroll through the entire page and they do not necessarily click on the first or second listing!

Research has shown that listings at the top and bottom of the page are more likely to be noticed than those in the middle. With Google Adwords, increasing either your maximum cost-per-click (CPC) or your ad's clickthrough rate (CTR) will improve your ad's position.

5. Write interesting ad copy
The headline and copy of your text are your one shot at getting leads and customers interested. You want to tell them what you are promoting and why they should visit your site. Remember the goal is interested customers (good leads) not just anybody. Give your potential customers an added incentive by giving away something FREE!. PEOPLE LOVE FREE STUFF! You can also include deadlines and discounts information when applicable. With the Google Adwords program, you can do this in real time.

6. Only bid on keywords that are relevant to your campaign.
This point cannot be over-empasized. All the Pay-per-click search engines have rules concerning how relevant keyword bids are. Generally, you cannot bid on keywords that have nothing to do with what they are linking to. In any case, bidding on words that are not related to your promotion is a bad strategy. It may result in clicks that you pay for, but that do not bring interested customers or leads.

7. Bid on as many relevant keywords as you can.
You catch more fish with a net than you do with a single line. You can often get great, targeted clicks for only a penny or less if you bid on less popular but relevant keywords. If you take the time to bid on a few words a day, you'll have a powerful, inexpensive campaign running within a few days. Don't forget to try it out at more than one PPC Search Engine as well.

8. Track your keywords and your entire marketing campaign.
You can do this by checking your Reports. Each pay-per-click service offers reports. These will tell you how well each keyword is driving traffic. You can then fine-tune your efforts by changing the value of your bids or adding and deleting keywords. Regularly Check your keyword position and do a lookup on your keywords. If you have picked popular words, you will notice that your bids will change position as others bid on them as well. Expect results that match your effort.

If you take a little extra time to apply these points, you should see good results within a short period of time, depending on your efforts.

Someone has said that pay-per-click search engines (like all Internet marketing efforts) are like fishing. You must cast hundreds of times to get a few fish. So be patient and remember that using pay-per-click advertising, like ezine advertising, is an effective approach that can increase sales at a very low cost.

Ben Chapi owns Venister Home business and Affiliate Program Classifieds at http://www.venister.org. He is also webmaster for http://www.best-debt-consolidation-loan.co.uk and http://www.home-equity-loan.org.uk