Anytime someone does a search for one of the keywords you select, your ads will appear.  When someone "clicks" on your ad, you will be charged up to the amount you "bid" for each keyword. 

What I like most about PPC, is that it is targeted advertising.  You only advertise to your target market and you only pay when someone visits your website.

The drawbacks of PPC is that it can be very expensive.  You must know your metrics such as visitor value, cost per lead and life-time value of each lead.

In other words, if you generate $1,000 in profit, for every 1,000 people that visit your website, your visitor value is $1 per person.  Therefore, you don't want to spend $1 per click.  You will want to spend 50 cents or less.  Ten to twenty cents would be ideal.

To anyone getting started, I would recommend Google Adwords, because Google is the largest Search Engine.  Millions of searches are conducted on Google each day.

You can visit Google and create your own Google Adwords account for free.  However, before you do that I would recommend that you educate yourself about PPC first. 

I've read several books and taken several courses about PPC, and my favorite course and books are all by Perry Marshall.  He is the Google AdWords expert.  He is the author of "The Definitive Guide to Google AdWords" and The Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords."  These are two of the best business books I have ever read. 

You can pick up a copy of "The Definitive Guide to Google AdWords" by Clicking on the banner below.  The money you invest in his course will pay for itself from the money you save from not knowing what you are doing.

Even if you don't want a copy of the book, you should sign up for his free training courses.  Once you click on the banner below, just type in your name and email on the page.  The training is truly amazing.