Marketing online is a dog-eat-dog world these days. Most Internet searchers are aware of Google’s AdWords program, they are the ads that appear on the right of the search results, under “Sponsored Links”. But what about all the other search engines? Are pay per click programs available there, too?

MSN.com, a search engine produced by Microsoft, offers pay per click under the name of adCenter. For a low start-up cost of $5 and a credit card, you can start bidding on ad placement based on the words users search for. The starting bid, as little as a nickel per click, is the maximum you are willing to pay for a prime-location placed ad. You can increase your maximum bid amount for certain audiences or keywords to help boost your chances of appearing at the top of the page when users fitting your target audience search for your keywords. Typically, the higher you bid, the higher your ad placement.

Microsoft adCenter offers a few tracking tools to advertisers. There is a free conversion tracker (so you can see how many clicks resulted in purchases, registrations or specific actions on your site), adTracker (reports the effectiveness of your clicks) and a reporting tool that allows you to see how much you are paying per click, among other data.

Microsoft also offers a demographic finding tool. To access this tool, click on MSN Directory from the MSN.com home page. Then click on Advertise on MSN under the ‘From MSN’ heading.

Yahoo!, the second most popular search engine behind Google, offers a versatile pay per click program. You bid on placement, much like MSN. Yahoo has additional tools, though, like their Keyword Selection Tool, that will show you how many times a keyword has been searched in the past month as well as searches related to a specific keyword.

Yahoo! also has a tool, called the View Bids Tool, that allows you to see what other advertisers are bidding for certain terms and their titles and descriptions. Additionally, the Price Determination chart will help you find a happy medium between top advertising spots and your budget.

To open a Sponsored Search account on Yahoo!, you’ll need an opening balance of $5. Bids start at $.05. Before you create your account, you can view all the tools and run a few searches to see the keyword saturation in your field. To get there, just go to Yahoo.com and click the Ad Programs link next to the Yahoo! Search button.

goClick.com, a smaller search engine, offers a lower minimum bid per click, just one cent. There is no set up fee or monthly fee to be a part of goClick’s network of paid advertisers and the opening balance minimum is $10.

If your target audience is very specific, web sites they are likely to visit may offer affiliate advertising. Using this marketing method you pay a fee for each month you advertise on the site, either via banner ad or link, or you may pay per click. The cost per click is typically higher than search engine programs but your advertising dollar is reaching a more specialized market.

The crucial points to remember when utilizing pay per click advertising are:
* Be very specific about your keywords - avoid broad terms
* Stay away from sites that pay visitors to click on their advertisers
* Keep an eye on your cost per click vs. sales or traffic and change your keyword ads as needed

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