Google's fourth quarter earnings report found that businesses paid less for more PPC clicks in the fourth quarter of 2012.

Businesses using PPC as part of their web marketing campaigns saw click rates increase and overall cost per click rates decrease in the fourth quarter of 2011, Google reported on Thursday. As part of its quarterly earnings report, Google said that paid clicks increased 34 percent compared to final three months of 2010 and 17 percent from the previous three months of 2011.

CPC also become more favorable for businesses, falling 8 percent from the same period of 2010. Compared to the third quarter of 2011, CPC dropped 8 percent as well, Google said.

Using PPC as part of web marketing campaigns can help businesses gain prime exposure for their landing page content. The channel is especially effective when paired with SEO, joining organic SEO and paid search in a well-rounded search strategy, as Brafton recently highlighted.

With Google seeing increased paid clicks, the company’s dominance in the search market becomes even more clear. Naturally, the holiday season did play a role in greater focus on PPC ads, as consumers looked for the best deals on the products they were shopping for. However, Google managed to attract more than 65 percent of total search queries in December, more than likely contributing to the decreasing cost per click rates. 

Joe Meloni is Brafton's former Executive News and Content Writer. He studied journalism at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and has written for a number of print and web-based publications.