Last month, we examined search engine optimization. This month, we raise the hood on pay-per-click advertising on the Internet.

Pay-per-click has been touted as an affordable way for smaller companies with modest budgets to level the marketing playing field with large companies. In fact, any business that wants to conduct e-commerce, or generate leads for products and services online, may find profit in paid search. Whether you want to reach a national or global audience, or just expand your business locally, it can be highly effective in attracting critical traffic to your Web site.

Remember that pay-per-click advertising is not “push” media, like radio and TV spots delivered to people who may or may not be interested in your offerings. It serves highly focused ads to people who are actively looking to buy what you have to sell, and you only pay for visitors to your Web site, not viewers of your ad. With pay-per-click, your ad dollars can show a higher rate of return than other advertising media.

And in Oregon, there’s opportunity for a wide variety of companies to leverage paid-search.

Note: You may read the full column published in the business journal a few weeks after its publication, provided in the link below. Before then, a paid subscription is required to view the entire article on the Portland Business Journal's website.

Read the full column at Portland Business Journal