Search engines are the most widely used vehicles for generating traffic to websites. In fact, research confirms that over 90% of Internet users utilize search engines to find products, services or information. Research also clearly demonstrates that if your website isn't found within the top 10 to 30 search results (the first three pages), no one will find it. And if they don't find it, not only won't they become customers — they will find your competitors instead.

Pay per click advertising (PPC) is a search engine marketing technique that requires you to pay a fee every time someone clicks to your website from an ad you've placed in a search engine's results. The more you agree to pay per click (or bid) for a specific keyword and the more effective your ad, the higher your site will rank in the paid search results.

By 2010, online marketers will spend $7 billion dollars on PPC advertising (Jupiter Research). So PPC programs are only going to get more competitive and more expensive. Therefore, no matter how overwhelming and complex the process, it's critical to have an effective pay per click management strategy.