Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is the fastest growing way of advertising on the internet. A PPC campaign lets you determine exactly who comes to your website. When someone does a search on a site such as Google or Yahoo, your advertisement is shown for particular keywords. So, you connect with potential customers at the precise moment when they're looking for your product or service.

Because you choose the keywords, you only attract relevant visitors to your site. Also, an important advantage is that you only pay for actual click throughs to your site. In other words, you only pay if someone clicks on a link or banner and lands on your site. If someone only sees your link, but does not click through, this is called an impression. You do not pay for impressions.

The two most common places to advertise are Google, Yahoo and Bing. Combined, they include the vast majority of searches done on the web.