PPC stands for pay-per-click and is a type of digital ad online for which the advertiser pays a fee each time their ad is clicked. The ad can be in the form of text, an image banner, or a combination of both which links to your website or anywhere you would like to send the user to when they click your ad.  This is the fastest way to get traffic to your website and to show up in the 1st position, or wherever you want (depending on your bid) on the Google search results page. (SERP) There is some SEO involved in PPC and Google Ads is the main most popular platform for PPC, although not the only one. Google does have an extended network of websites that you can also opt into when you start running ads. PPC is different than organic search traffic to your website, which is “earned” by your rankings and other sites online that link back to your website which users can click. Unlike PPC, earned media or organic traffic is Free.

Search engine advertising is one of the most popular forms of PPC, Google as I mentioned being the top search engine. The Google Ads platform allows the advertiser to select the keywords they want to show up for when a user types them into the search and depending on the bid amount google will display the ad in a specific position. Google ads are designed and created by advertisers, and depending on how many keywords are in competition with each other, there are several factors that determine which ad shows up 1st, 2nd 3rd, etc.

The main factor considered by google is the keywords from each advertiser that are the same and the amount of the bid. These are the basic determinations, but there are so many other factors that come into play when Google ads determine which ads they will display and in which order.