by David Riel

Created on: April 07, 2007   Last Updated: April 13, 2007

Pay per click advertising can provide you with a cash machine that makes you money even while you sleep. Here's what you need to know to start making your own pay per click cash withdrawals.

Pay per click advertising consists of those ads that come up on pay per click search engines - like Google, Yahoo, and MSN (there are hundreds of others but these are the biggest)- when you run a search on certain keywords. The advertisers pay for placement when those keywords are searched, but only pay the pay per click search engine company if you click on the link contained in the ad, which directs you to the advertiser's web page. The cost per click can be anywhere from a few pennies, to $20.00 or more, depending on the competition for the keyword.

Pay per click advertising can drive targeted traffic to your website in a hurry. You can quickly test marketing ideas, or determine the conversion rate for your pages - how many people actually buy what you have to sell - without spending a lot of time and while limiting your advertising expenses.

You can be making money in minutes.

But caution is called for.

Pay per click can also drive you to the brink of bankruptcy if you don't understand it. The good news is, you can get up to speed in a hurry.

I'll concentrate on Google Ad Words because it's the largest, fastest, and easiest to use.

The other pay per click search engines have their advantages. You may find, after some experimentation, that Yahoo, is more flexible, MIVA is more cost effective, and so on. But none of them are quicker to implement or easier to understand than Google's Ad Words starter campaign (with MIVA, for example, you may wait days before your ads appear and will often get a phone call from a representative first).

With Goodle Ad Words you just sign up for a starter account, pick your keywords and bid on them, decide how much you want to pay per day (that is, your daily spending limit) and activate your ads.

You can then go to your website and watch the hits on your counter.

Pretty neat.

But before you pull the trigger here are some inside tips about how to make Google Adwords work for you.

The secret is to understand Google's business model, which is to provide searchers with relevant content. This has two implications for Ad Words, both of which can either cost or save you money.

The first is that Google demands that searchers who click on pay per click ads are rewarded with being directed to pages relevant to their search, and Google will reward advertisers

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