Companies need to do more to take full advantage of their pay-per-click (PPC) marketing techniques, it has been revealed.

Writing on Search Engine Land, Jon Miller points to a study by Forrester Research which indicates only a quarter of B2B search advertisements actually take users to keyword-specific landing pages.

He suggests companies should look to "lead nurturing" to help encourage visitors to make a purchase.

Mr Miller commented: "It is about progressively understanding more about the prospect's needs and using targeted one-to-one communications to build your company's position as a trusted advisor."

Meanwhile, creating a "good landing page" that utilises keywords was also advised to increase return on investment.

He reported that it not only gets "better rankings and more clicks for less money" but also can lead to "dramatically higher conversion rates"

Earlier this week, chief executive of the Internet Advertising Bureau Guy Phillipson told the Times more companies will take up PPC as internet advertising continues to grow.