Cost per click or PPC is often discussed in terms of a wider internet marketing campaign, or as a method for large businesses with huge advertising budgets to buy their way to the top of the search engines. However, small businesses and can benefit from implementing a PPC campaign too.
Depending on your product or service, investing in cost per click might even be more worthwhile than considering a search engine optimization campaign because of the speediness of results (or lack of) - and you may find that being a small enterprise, where your strategy can be changed and adapted quickly, may even give you the edge in your sector.
Keywords: Knowing which keywords/phrases to target for your PPC campaign is likely to be the most important aspect to get right. Being a small business with a tight advertising budget means that the more comprehensive your research and the more compromising you are with your terms, then the more successful you shall be.
In simple terms, unlike SEO, you will be paying for the privilege to be at the top of the search engines up front. But at the same time, you will be able to see where your campaign is and isn't working within a couple of weeks, compared to months or a year for SEO.
That said, when considering which keywords/phrases to bid for, the rules are quite similar to those of search engine optimization.