Google makes its money out of advertising - so it should be no surprise that this is one of the areas where it focuses much of its product development resources. Google Advertising (Adwords) allows the customer to have complete control over what ads they show, what keywords they show up for, how much they are prepared to pay per day, and how much they are prepared to pay per click.

It gets better - Google Adwords is now fully tied in with Google Analytics - the all-singing all-dancing web statistics service. The result of this is that you can now get pretty close to ‘real time’ Return On Investment feedback on your online spend. This is especially true for companies selling products directly online;  Say you spend £10 on advertising one morning - and as a direct result you generate 3 new sales worth £15 - you instantly know this is probably worth spending a bit more money on. If on the other hand you spend £40 over the course of the day but get nothing as a result - then you know that you are doing something wrong and its time to take a step back and re-evaluate before spending any more. This instant feedback makes Google Adwords a very useful tool for Search Engine Marketing.

Getting started with google analytics is dead simple - and if you look around you might even find a free £30 voucher to get you started!