PPC stands for Pay Per Click, and is a paid advertising service run by the mighty Google.  It allows businesses to effectively “bid” for advertising space for thier website using keywords, similar to those used in organic SEO.

The benefit of PPC campaigns is that they get your website right to the top of search engines pretty much instantly.  By paying Google to advertise your website, you do not need to spend months and months getting your SEO up to scratch enough to reach the number 1 position on the search engine results pages.  PPC allows you to pay your way to the top very quickly.

The other great things about PPC is that you can narrow down your campaign to very specific areas, or you can keep it fairly broad.  Some keywords are worth more than others, and the more competitive your industry is, the more you are likely to have to pay per click.  The way it works is that when a user types in their keyword and sees your sponsored post at the top of the list, if they click on your link, you pay a small fee to Google.  It doesn’t matter if the user stays on your site, or immediately goes off it, you still pay your fee to Google, kind of as a thank you for putting you at the top!