Part 1: Benefits | Part 2: Drawbacks | Part 3: Choices | Part 4: Costs

So, you're interested in advertising with Pay Per Click, but how do you go about it? Most people will have heard of Google AdWords, but it's not the only choice.

Believe it or not, using Google AdWords might not be the best option for you. Take a look at our overview of the AdWords as well as Yahoo's and Microsoft's alternatives to judge for yourself.

Part 3: Choices

Google AdWords

The Google AdWords system is by the far the most widely used because of its reach. According to Hitwise UK, Google's websites accounted for a third of all traffic generated in the UK. As a direct comparison, Google UK gets around 70% of all search engine traffic, whilst Yahoo! UK gets 2.91%. Microsoft's Bing search engine isn't far behind with 2.36%. When you consider Google.com gets 12% of UK searches, you can see just how much Google dominates the market.

Just to press its advantage home, the other main search alternative - Ask Jeeves - doesn't run its own ads, instead it shows Google's. Ask Jeeves is part of Google's 'Search Network' that also includes Google Maps, Virgin Media and Amazon.

Being the most popular does have its disadvantages though. Google AdWords has attracted many advertisers with its easy-to-use system, consequently making most keyword phrases extremely competitive. With Google's dominance showing no sign of waning, this situation will only get worse.

Because of the amount of competition, it therefore becomes very important to have an efficient, targeted advertising campaign. If you don't, suddenly Google AdWords seems like a very expensive experiment. What AdWords does offer you is a chance to sell very quickly, thanks to the huge amount of traffic it attracts, and remember, even in a competitive market it remains good value compared to many other advertising mediums.

One aspect of Google AdWords to be wary about is the 'Content Network.' These are other websites that display Google's ads (using contextual targeting), including Gmail, Channel 4, Times Online and Reuters. Sounds impressive, but there are less famous websites within the network too, most not delivering the same highly targeted users as on Google itself. By default, the Content Network is selected when somebody starts using the AdWords system, but it should be fully evaluated before considering advertising on it.

Yahoo! Search Marketing

Yahoo's Search Marketing system works very much like the Google AdWords alternative, although perhaps not quite as intuitive to use. The main advantage is that, since not as many people know about it, there is less competition. So, if your budget isn't as high and you're not reliant on getting sales "right now," Yahoo Search Marketing is worth taking a look at.

As with Google, Yahoo displays ads under broad terms by default, so if you advertised "footballs" someone searching for "free footballs" would see your ad. Yahoo calls this an 'Advanced' setting, but the 'Standard' setting shows you for more less broad keyword phrases. Even so, you can't control it as much as with Google AdWords. In AdWords, you can set an exact much, which makes it even more targeted and will reduce Cost Per Click.

Features that Yahoo has which it shares with the other big players include budget scheduling, geographic targeting and their own version of the Content Network called 'Content Match.' As with Google AdWords, many find this to be a way of getting many clicks, but not much in the way of conversions due to it being not as targeted. There isn't much choice over the matter in the UK as Yahoo shuts down Content Match for UK users early in 2009.

Microsoft adCenter

Microsoft's adCenter is a similar story to Yahoo! Search Marketing. Traffic is relatively low, but at least you pay less for the pleasure! There are the same pitfalls also, such as a content network and broad keyword matching by default. In our opinion though, it's an easier system to user than Yahoo.

In conclusion, Google AdWords is popular for a reason: it will bring you sales quickly. The key is to find a niche to be competitive in. This is less of an issues with Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter, but you have to be careful with the well hidden ways that they spend your money when running with default settings.

Move on to 'Costs'