Is paid advertising worth the outlay?

Yes & No, but there are conditions! Paid advertising is useless if it isn't done correctly. Many people register with Google AdWords, create an advert for as many vague keywords as possible and start throwing money away! Literally thousands of Google ads could be improved with a little foresight and planning.

Finding a niche keyword and paying 2p a click is all very well, as long as you realise its probably cheap because no ones searching for it. Google will provide tools 'a plenty to help you on your way with things, but using the tools is sometimes harder than it looks! Use Google's help section and the thousands of forums and blogs on how the tools can help.

Effectively paid advertising is only as useful as you make it. Throw money at it and you may as well burn it, learn how to use it and it becomes a valuable marketing tool!

To sum it all up I've listed some basic tips for using AdWords:

1. Be relevant; When choosing text, content and keywords be relevant to your site.
2. Have a landing page; Make the users transition from the ad to the relevant content on the page as simple as possible. Advertising a service, then sending them to the homepage to find it themselves will put people off.
3. Open your wallet; Some keywords are cheaper than others, chances are they are cheap because they are rarely searched for.

Be wise when setting your budget and remember Quality visitors from AdWords is much better than Volume of visitors especially if you are selling a service!

Till next time.

Dan