The recent new that Google’s advertising income in the UK has surpassed our second largest TV station, Channel 4, represent a significant milestone in the development of online advertising.

Besides the obvious fact that Google is fast becoming one of the richest and most powerful media companies in the world; is the fact that their anticipated £900 million turnover is not from a few dozen blue chip companies paying tens of thousands of pounds for a few minutes of exposure; but thousands of businesses, large and small who have discovered one of the most powerful and effective mediums available, in other words pay per click advertising.

So what is pay per click advertising and how difficult is it to get started? PPC advertising is an advertising system where advertisers pay a known amount for each click to his or her site. Small ads are displayed on advertising networks and search engines and these are called “sponsored links” or “sponsored ads”.

The ads only appear when a visitor conducts a search using a keyword tied to the ad. There is only a charge when the visitor clicks on the ad. There are three main companies currently delivering these services. The two biggest are Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing. Recently they have been joined by Microsoft with their Adcenter.