A pay-per-click system is a search engine ranking system which is based on bids. You choose a search term or terms, and then bid a certain amount of money, which you p ay each time net-surfer clicks on your url. When a search term is entered, all of the sites registered with that term are displayed in order of bid, highest to lowest.

Another effective way of getting seen on the search engines is the pay-per-impression system. This is a new system, and is very similar to pay-per-click. Rather than paying to be listed as a search term result, you pay to have a banner ad run on the same page with a list of specific search term results.

Pay per click (PPC) advertising can be a dream come true. You can get traffic almost immediately from some PPC search engines. And it can be mighty cheap too. Next to joint ventures, PPC search engines have been responsible for most of my online income.

If you're currently engaged in paid search advertising and the keyword price in the vertical market increases, your site's current conversion rate may not support the higher bids necessary to stay in the game.

Bid prices on a keyword set in your vertical market may continue to rise. If you're not currently engaged in PPC, when you finally decide to jump in, you'll already be priced out of the market.

If either of these scenarios applies to you, you'll need the knowledge and a strategy to increase conversion rates in an effective way.

The importance of improving your site's conversion rate cannot be overstated. Don't wait until PPC advertising prices become prohibitively expensive to focus on increasing conversion rates.