If you are considering paying for traffic to your website, the most commonly used advertising is Google Adwords. Also known as PPC (Pay Per Click) or contextual advertising.
When you purchase these ads, you bid on the amount you want to pay based on targeted keywords. You also must set a daily limit or budget for your advertising campaign so you do not get a “surprise” bill of thousands of dollars that you did not expect to pay.
Once your campaign is set up, you have chosen your keywords, set your bid amount and your daily budget and activated the campaign, Google will then search for sites to display your ads on. Since your campaign is keyword focused, your ads will be shown on websites that have related content. Whenever a visitor to that site clicks on your ad and goes to your website, you will be charged a fee.
This type of advertising is more desirable than traditional advertising as you are only paying when someone actually visits your website. There is a downside to it too. Since the people who own the websites get paid a small commission when their visitors click on the ads, it opens the doors for click fraud which can cost the paying advertiser a great deal of money.
There is a steep learning curve for understanding Adwords and how to make a profit from it, so you must be prepared to pay a few bills before you get a ROI if you are new to PPC advertising. This is why it is imperative that you set a daily budget.
Before you venture into the world of PPC advertising I highly recommend you study and learn as much about it as possible before starting your first campaign or hire an expert to set up and manage your first few campaigns until you have learned enough to make a profit from it yourself.