I can't speak highly enough about Google AdWords - the pay-per-click service to include short advertisements on the right-hand side of a Google search page. It really works, and can help you jump straight onto Page 1 of a search today. I have used it to promote products and training courses for almost four years.

Achieving a good search engine position with natural search is important, but it can take a loooong time. You need to ensure your site includes plenty of the right 'keywords' and has links from other quality sites. It takes skill and a lot of work, and even then the results can suddenly change.

Google AdWords can be an excellent shortcut and you only pay if searchers actually click on your advertisement.

Writing your ad requires you to be concise and straight to the point - a bit like writing a classified ad for a newspaper.

On the right is an example I ran for ten days for a hotel in Brisbane (a large Australian city). Below you can see the number of Clicks from this ad through to the relevant website (I set up a temporary Brisbane wedding information page - now removed).

While the percentage might seem to be low (quite usual in this type of search) the total volume of searches means the final result is a very useful number of visitors to your site. But note that there were more than 3,500 searches all together during these 10 days. As you tweak the words on your ad and fine-tune the bid amount, your visits could increase even more (especially if you're a real business, and the green site link shows the name of your place).

Ultimately, once the searcher clicks through, it's your website that has to convince them to phone or buy, so make sure the link is directly to the relevant 'landing page' (in this case your wedding information page), not just the home page. You can always add more terms and obviously use completely different terms for a different type of business.

Click here to start exploring Google AdWords:

Controlling your costs

Controlling your advertising costs is critical. 'Wedding' words are dearer than many, but then so are the events, with profits to match!

Google allows you to set the maximum you will pay for a 'click' (in this case set at 80c) and the maximum you will spend per day (in this case $4). Set this in relation to the value of the sale that could result from a website visit. Start with a small amount while you experiment, but not so small that your ad won't show because you've used up the daily budget.

Here are the search terms that were most popular, and the range of terms I included (even some common spelling mistakes that could also produce a website visit):

Impr. (impressions) shows the number of times that term was searched for on Google. Search Total refers to searches directly on Google, and Content Total refers to searches done on a site (eg wedding information site) that hosts Google Ads.

Click here to start exploring Google AdWords: