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Thanks for tuning into Marketing Bites, a blog series about all things marketing cut down to bite-sized, digestible pieces.

Paid per click (PPC) is another name for paid search. PPC is a type of advertising where companies can pay a search engine to display your page on a search when certain keywords are used.

But why should you care where your site shows up in results? Well, reflect on your own search usage. How often do you click to the second page of search results? What about the third page? For most of us, the answer is not often to never. Having your page show up in the first page of a search result is huge – 71% to 92% of clicks happen on that first pageThe percentage of clicks plummets to only 6% for results on the second page (Forbes).

PPC allows you to get your site more visible (you could say your site becomes a sight) with minimal effort. It’s a great option if you aren’t getting a lot of traffic on your site organically (without using PPC).

You’re on the right track if you can get your website on the first page of search results, but you have to aim higher. The first five results on the first search results page receive 67.6% of clicks (Forbes). But how can you beat out all the other sites vying for those top five spots? Bidding is the most important part of PPC. It is exactly what it sounds like – you submit the highest amount you are willing to pay for each click, and the search engine platform you bid to starts with the lowest bid and then raises the price incrementally from that lowest price for each higher bid. So say you bid $8. You might end up only paying $4 per click based on the other bids. Check out this article from Search Engine Land to learn more about how PPC bidding works!

Thanks for checking out this bite of marketing on PPC! If you want to learn more about PPC, check out this Guide to Paid Search or this Google Ad article.