CPC means Cost Per Click (it is sometimes called Pay Per Click or PPC) and, simply put, it allows you to bid on keywords or phrases that people use when searching for things using a Search Engine like Google or Yahoo!

There are three main CPC systems. Overture, Miva (formerly E-spotting), and Google Adwords. If someone conducts a search using one of your selected keywords or phrases then your link will be served up on the results page, commonly in a box to the right of or above the standard results page. You pay only if they click on that link.

There are many advantages in using CPC over more traditional forms of advertising. Perhaps the most important is that the results are highly targeted. You only pay for people who, having used a keyword that describes your business AND clicked on the link served to them by the Search Engine, are actively interested in what you are offering.

Cost-Per-Click (CPC) or Pay-Per-Click (PPC) marketing overtook radio advertising in 2005 and looks set to continue growing.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is also growing and is arguably one of the most important businesses on the Internet. Done properly it helps provide a perfect fit between businesses trying to sell products and services and willing customers to buy them. But because the Internet is constantly growing and the Search Engines are continually tweaking their algorithms, good Search Engine Optimization is a bit like trying to paint the Forth Bridge, once you get to the end it’s time to go back to the beginning and start again.

So what actually is Search Engine Optimization? Simply put it means optimizing your Website so that it is a) quickly found by the numerous spiders, crawlers and bots sent out by the Search Engines to catalogue and Index the Web and b) get your site displayed prominently when someone searches under a specific keyword or phrase.

To achieve these aims, to actually optimize your site for the Search Engines, requires Keyword Research and Analysis; Keyword Competition Research; Website Design and Coding Analysis; and Link Building Analysis.

Fortunately that’s all included in the Search Engine Optimization Report.

So, which is better, CPC or SEO? As with most things it’s better if you use them together. CPC is very useful but works better if your site is properly tweaked to support your investment, and that means SEO, which in turn can deliver a greater return on investment if you support it with a little bit of hard advertising revenue.

Getting the Search Engine Optimization Report will help you decide exactly what combination will work best for you.