Google is without a doubt one of the biggest, fastest, baddest, and most popular search engines on the Net. Consistently positioning your site at the top of a Google Search can make a huge difference in the amount of new traffic you see. How you do that without spending a fortune or hiring an expensive consultant is the secret of this month’s ePOWER! TIP.

In the September 2001 edition of ePOWER! NEWS I covered how you could use Google's AdWord program to instantly achieve top "visibility" position within Google search results for any particular search phrase or term. However, with the standard AdWord program you pay for the number of times your ad is seen. This particular advertising model is called "Cost-Per-Impression" (CPM) where you pay whether your ad is clicked on or not.

Google recently announced its AdWords Select program, which is a pay-per-click (PPC) model where you only pay if your AdWord ad is clicked on. This is an impressively well thought-out advertising program that goes way beyond the typical PPC search engine model offered by Overture.com (the #1 PPC search engine). Here are some of its features and benefits:

• Set up fee is only $5 - considerably less than the $50 it costs to start an Overture.com PPC campaign;
• Minimum cost per click is $.05 - the same as Overture.com;
• Ad ranking (i.e. its position from the top) is determined by the maximum you are willing to pay per click-through and how often your ad gets clicked - the more effective your ad is in generating clicks the less your maximum "bid" needs to be in order to be positioned at the top. This makes it more fair than allowing any advertiser to simply bid up the cost of the click-throughs which often happens on Overture.com;
• Google's AdWord Discounter program automatically makes sure you pay the minimum amount to stay on top. It constantly compares your ad maximum bid and click-through rate with that of your competitors and adjusts your click-through cost accordingly (see Google's AdWord Select program overview for a more complete description) - this feature solves a big complaint that many people have using Overture.com where you must constantly monitor your position to avoid paying too much or being kicked out of the top position;
• AdWord ads start showing up within 5 minutes of registration - it take 3 - 5 days for your site to show up on Overture.com searches;
• You can set a daily budget - this allows you to achieve a more even set of click-throughs over time where on Overture.com you can theoretically go through your entire monthly budget in just one day.

Google has put together a great one-page overview of the whole AdWord Select program. CLICK HERE to check it out now.

Pay-per-click is an awesome alternative to spending thousands hiring a search engine specialist to position your site, often without consistent results. Overture.com has done a great job of establishing the relevancy of this kind of search engine advertising model. However Google has taken the idea and made it much, much better and easier to use. Also, the fact that Google's 150 million searches a day completely dwarfs the search activity on Overture.com makes its Adword Select program a must in your arsenal of site traffic generating strategies.

By the way, if you are excited about the possibility of driving tons of new traffic to you site but still feel intimidated by the process —no problem! Just hire a Virtual Assistant to start up and run your whole AdWord Select program for you! Remember, success is not about knowing how to do something, it's knowing what to do (which is what I help you with each month) and who to hire to get it done.