How to Keep Costs Low in Your Google AdWords Campaigns

You may have heard that pay-per-click (PPC) advertising—aka advertising online—is expensive. And it can be. But if you know how to set up your account correctly—and you're committed to tracking its progress and making adjustments over time—then you can reap the benefits without paying the hefty fees.

Before I explain how to do this, I want to address the question of why you might want to create a PPC campaign. PPC ads are the ads that display in the top shaded area and on the right side of the search engine results page.

The center listings are called organic search results. It can take months or even years to get a top listing in this area. So, if you have a website that isn't showing up in the first page or two of search results, then a PPC effort is the quicker way to get on the first page of results.

Because Google is the largest search engine with two-thirds of the market share, you should start out with a Google AdWords account. (AdWords is the name of Google's PPC program.)