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The power of Google

"The Internet", said Google's chief economist, Hal Varian, "makes information available. Google makes information accessible."

As the most visited search engine on the web, Google has quite simply changed the way we seek out information. No longer do we conduct an internet search - instead we 'Google' it. Type a few words or a question into the Google search box and in less than a second a list of answers appear!

Keeping up with the changes

Technology has also transformed our whole media experience and made mass advertising less effective. People read their newspapers and magazines online, subscribe to paid television services with a multitude of channels, use MySky and Tivo to schedule when they watch their favourite programmes and keep up to date with who they choose to on Facebook and Twitter. As people's behaviour changes, our approach to marketing also needs to change.

As businesses we need to increasingly looking for new ways to communicate with prospective customers, so that our message reaches them when they are most likely to be receptive to it. Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is an effective way to target your message directly to people at the exact moment they are looking for your products or services.

Given the popularity of Google it is not all that surprising that Google AdWords is the most well known and utilised form of PPC advertising for small businesses. Used as part of your online marketing strategy it can be an excellent way to drive targeted traffic to your website. But before you begin, you need to determine exactly what it is you want to achieve.

Do you want to generate leads, educate prospects or make online sales? Be sure to define your goals and objectives at the outset, then you can determine what metrics you will use to measure the effectiveness of your campaign e.g. number of people who sign up for your newsletter, number of email enquiries, number of sales. As with all of your marketing it needs to form part of the 'bigger picture' and not be viewed in isolation.

So what exactly is AdWords?

AdWords is an automated auction where you 'bid' for keywords (these can be words or phrases) that you want your ad to appear on. You write the content of your ad, and choose relevant keywords, then when someone searches for those words, all the ads containing keywords related to their search are put into an auction, including yours.

The ads that rank the highest will be displayed either on the right-hand side or above Google's organic search results. Interested prospects can then click on your ad and be directed to your website. At any one time, Google will display up to 11 ads on a page, so if your rank is greater than 11, your ad will not appear on the first page of results.

Pay Per Click

With a Pay Per Click system such as AdWords you only pay when someone actually clicks on your ad, not when your ad is displayed, meaning every dollar you spend can potentially bring targeted prospects to your business.

How much you pay for each click depends on how much you are willing to bid for your selected keywords and also on your 'Quality Score'. The higher your bid and the higher your Quality Score, the more chance your ad will display at the top of the page.