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Having a presence on the web is a must for any business, from the smallest bookstore to the largest franchise. Advertising online can seem daunting at first, but it's actually quite simple. I'll show you how to get your ads online and maximise their impact; and I'll do it all while keeping your small local business in mind.

Take a moment and look around this page, don't worry, I'll wait. This page, like many online, is powered by ads. That's who's paying me to write this for you. But until I pointed them out, you probably weren't paying any attention to the ads. Even if you did read them, I doubt you would have clicked on one; most people don't.

This is the first thing you have to understand about advertising on the internet - it's much like carpet bombing. You know roughly the area you want to target, then you blanket the area and hope you get some hits. Luckily for you, there are millions of internet users, so even if only a small percentage click your ad, it will still do well. You can also opt to pay only when someone clicks your ad and, ike carpet bombing, there are ways to increase your chances.

The ads on this page arrived through a service called AdWords, It's easily the most popular way to market a product on the web. The service is provided by Google. Google's ads work in a number of different ways. I'll explain how they got onto this page first.

The website owners signed up to Google's AdSense service and then Google scanned their pages for keywords. Google then posts ads with related keywords on the page. That way the ads are relevant and more likely to be of interest to the viewer. The website owner is paid a certain amount for either each view, or each click, of an ad.

The ads can appear as a short piece of text - like ones the left side of this page - or a picture banner - which might appear at the top. AdWord ads also appear on every google search. These ads will again be relevant to the user. Google's technology is so advanced that you can even target specific suburbs, so you won't pay for customers you'll never get.

To start advertising using Google do a search for 'adwords', but first read on to maximize your chances.

Take another look around the page. Which ads capture your attention and why? What stands out?

I'll tell you what doesn't: ads promoting 'amazing' deals which are 'incredible' or 'unbelievable'. No matter how amazing your product or service, internet users won't believe you. There is too much dodgy stuff on the internet, too many scams

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