Usually when I open magazines, I throw away the rubbish that falls out. This month however, one of the bits of paper that fell out of the latest issue of PC Pro was a Google Adwords voucher for £50. This must be used during January for the full £50, or it can be used in February (when it will be worth £30). As the magazine costs under £5, it would be worth buying, if just for the voucher (clearly, check the voucher is still inside before parting with your money - although the magazine is by far the best PC magazine available and well worth reading).

Adwords are a way of sponsoring keywords within Google Searches. They can also appear on websites that I have opted to display Google adverts (you can turn this feature on or off). At random, when your chosen keyword is displayed, your little advert appears at the top of the page or to the right. If someone clicks on the advert, you are charged some money (typically around 50p, but can run in to several pounds for the more popular keywords).

Does it work? Well, I started an Adword campaign for this site on the 22nd Jan. My site traffic seesm to have increased by several hundred percent - but due to the short time scales, this may be an insignificant bump caused by something else. I shall continue to monitor over the next few weeks before reporting back.

I am sponsoring CMS, Joomla, Drupal, Web Development, Devon, Exeter, Web Design, Open Source and Web 2.0 (all of these in various combinations). If you have any ideas for alternative keywords, then please leave a comment below!

Cheers,

Henry