You will have seen AdWords in action before. They are those little text ads that
appear down the right hand side of Google’s search results. They are an
amazingly powerful method of advertising. The ads you see are 100% related to
the keywords that you type into a search. This means, that as an AdWords
advertiser you are capable of displaying your ads in front of an audience that is
already interested in your products or services. Never before have businesses
been able to conduct their advertising in such a highly targeted manner.

If your internet company rented holiday properties in Spain for example, you
could set up your AdWords ads to appear ONLY when someone typed in
keywords like “Spanish, Spain, holiday, rental, villas, apartments, properties etc.”

Of course, this all comes at a price. As an advertiser, you have to pay Google
every time somebody clicks on one of your ads. Not knowing how to cost their
system, the geniuses at Google came up with the idea of letting their advertisers
bid against each other for the value of their chosen keywords.

This means, that if I wanted my ad to be displayed the most often when
someone types the key phrase “Spanish holidays” into Google, I would have to
out bid the advertiser who currently comes top of the list for this key phrase.

The Internet has matured as a result of ppc advertising. The embarrassing days
of the Dot Coms are well and truly behind us. The value of online businesses
can now be measured because ppc advertising is a dynamic system that reflects
real-world supply and demand.

With ppc advertising, Google has enabled small online businesses to flourish,
whilst making tens of billions for themselves.