Google Adwords
Adwords is a search engine marketing pay per click program. When you perform a search on Google on the right hand side of the search results (and sometimes at the top) you'll see a series of adverts under a heading "Sponsored Links". These adverts are from the Google Adwords programme.
You only pay anything when someone actually clicks onto your advert and you can set up a daily limit for your advertising so it's easy to maintain control over your spend.
The idea behind adwords (and other similar search engine marketing programmes) is that people only see your advert when they are searching for something relevant to what you sell or the services you provide. As such if they click through to your site they are far more likely to be interested in what your company or organisation offers.
Adwords has the advantage that it's easy to set up a basic campaign meaning that you can start driving traffic to your website very quickly (e.g. within an hour!). Other online marketing techniques - particularly Search Engine Optimisation - can take time to take effect.
Another advantage over generalised advertising is that Adwords is highly accountable. You can monitor exactly what adverts and keywords are generating clicks through to your site and if you also set up Google Analytics you can then monitor in detail what people go on to your site. This can enable you to refine your campaigns over time - if a lot of people click through to your site for example but never go on to buy you can reconsider your approach.
Other search engine advertising options include Yahoo Search Engine Marketing and Microsoft Adcenter (for adverts on Bing).
