Chance are you Google as your primary search engine, but are aware of Yahoo! and MSN. They aren’t the only search engines, however. There are hundreds of search engines out there.

Many of them offer advertising that you can pay for on a pay per click basis. This means that you don’t pay based on the number of people who see your advertisement. You pay based on the number of clicks you get on your advertisement.

If you have had success with pay per click (PPC), you may be interested in expanding into another PPC engine to expose your ads to another market. If you have had success with Google’s program you may want to try MSN’s program or one of the other services.

This is a perfectly logical thought. Unfortunately, only a very few PPC engines work. Many will tell you how their bids per click are so much lower than the AdWords clicks. This information is usually true.

The problem is that although clicks are cheap, the conversions are very expensive most of the time. Paying ten cents a click sounds like a bargain when you are used to paying a dollar a click. However, your profit isn’t driven by how many clicks you get, but by how many purchases or leads you get.

I have been using PPC since 2004 and have used not only AdWords, but Yahoo!, MSN’s program and many others. (To advertise on Yahoo! you must use the MSN product now.)

PPC still works, but there is more competition today. I get more leads via my SEO efforts today. For most people who are successful with SEO, it is a cheaper alternative in the long run, but it takes a while to see a return.

If you have a well thought-out website and advertising strategy, you can make a profit with PPC if you stick with the two major PPC programs. However, you will have to test ten or twenty of the smaller engines to find one that will give you a good ROI.

If you do decide to test any PPC program, be sure to test constantly limit your daily or monthly budget. Also be sure to monitor your results on an ongoing basis. Programs that make you a profit today may not do so next month.