In some cases, these paid amounts can be very large. There is one company in San Fransisco
who told me they were paying Google over $16,000 a year.

While paying to have your site seen by viewers who type certain phrases seems a great idea to guarantee traffic, many businesses are now finding something which we quickly discovered when we developed our FirstPage system.

Saturation.

FirstPage, our own search engine optimization, submission and tracking software, gives our clients first page search engine results without ongoing costs, for unlimited keyword phrases.

However, because most Search Engines have only 10 available results on the first page, we soon realized that we had spent months creating something which would limit our future client base.

As it is now, FirstPage gives sometimes 2, 3 or even 4 first page results in Google.

Therefore, with 10 results a page, we have had to limit our FirstPage clients to no more than 3 of any type of business in any area. We have even had clients who have purchased 2nd sites just to make sure their competition can't get the same results.

So, what has our software got to do with Pay-per-Click? Simple, the same rules apply for Pay-per-click as apply to normal results. There are only 10 per page.

For people paying the minimum amounts possible, as are most smaller businesses, their listings are on the right side of the page. If you get more than 10 competing companies with those key phrases, some are going to get 'bumped'. Paying for results sometimes many pages down, does tend to defeat the object of paying for these listings in the first place..

Of course, as is the nature of commerce and competition, you CAN pay Google considerably more per click to be in the prime horizontal blue bar at the top of the results page, but those places are expensive and limited also.

There is a second, equally important point which companies paying-per-click often overlook, and that is the 'image factor' in viewing results.

The cold hard fact of the Internet is that there is always someone to compete against.

From an 'image' perspective, it does not matter if you are paying $500,000 a year to be #1 if people don't like what they see when they get to you.

With so many possible variations of visitor browsers, connection speeds and operating systems, any visitors need to see something which is both appealing, and works with their particular system when they find you.

Terry Young is the founder and CEO of Internet Marketing and Design. Since 1997,
his computer programming and graphic design knowledge have kept his company
at the forefront of the latest technology in web development.