As a preview, the following list outlines the basic steps of designing and running ads in Google, in roughly the order in which most people proceed:

-  Start an account. Starting an AdWords account is pain-free and expensefree. You don’t even have to be certain that you’ll ever run a single ad. Opening the account simply lets you into Google’s AdWords staging area, called the Control Center, where you create and deploy campaigns. No ads are displayed, and no billing occurs, until you activate the account, at which time you provide your payment information. Opening the account gives you access to the Keyword Suggestion Tool, a necessary campaign-planning device.

-  Write ads. Google provides guidelines for composing the highly compressed copy that goes into an AdWords ad. This copy is called the creative, as in, “I’m going to rewrite the creative of my ad.” AdWords advertisements are extremely short bursts of text, so it’s no surprise that they’re difficult to write. (Any writer will tell you that expressing a message concisely is far more difficult than composing long, voluble, drawn-out, wordy sentences that repeat redundancies and ramble on loosely and aimlessly, continuing beyond the point that they’re intended to convey, seemingly without end, until the writer mercifully runs out of steam or his editor intervenes, whichever comes first.) Google imposes guidelines that establish a uniform style throughout the AdWords column. Within those rules, experimentation is key. Savvy AdWords marketers determined to maximize effect create multiple ads for each group of keywords, and then watch their reports carefully to see what works.

-  Assign keywords. This crucial task determines the search result pages upon which your ad appears. In truth, you should be assigning keywords continually, even before you open an AdWords account. I make the point throughout this article. Sorry about the repetition, but keywords represent the one Google marketing thread that runs through everything, from designing a site to building your PageRank, from advertising on results pages to publishing Google ads in the AdSense program. At this point in your evolution as a Google advertiser, keyword selection becomes an intensely focused affair, with money riding on sharp, competitive choices.

-  Bid on keywords. At this point, you choose how much you’re willing to pay for the keywords associated with your ads. Specifically, you select a maximum cost-per-click (CPC) that you’ll pay per group of keywords. You may adjust the maximum CPC for each keyword. Another group of keywords, applying to one or more ads, can be implemented with a different cost-per-click maximum (for the entire group and individual words). When it comes to running the campaign and paying your bills, Google often charges less than your maximum in fact, Google always charges the lowest CPC to keep your ad in the position it would attain by paying the maximum. (See the “Getting into position” sidebar.)

-  Edit keywords. This step and the previous two steps happen at once. Adjusting your maximum CPC and your keywords are part of a single process the most important process of your campaign. Google provides estimates of your ad’s performance at various CPC levels, on a keyword-by-keyword basis. Articles 7 and 8 delve into selecting and bidding on keywords.

-  Specify a budget. You can set a daily maximum for clickthrough expenses. Google can optimize the timing of your ad displays to spread out your ad displays and clickthroughs over a 24-hour period. Ideally, your ads run evenly throughout the day, and you hit your daily budget on the nose. Google sometimes overshoots and exceeds the daily budget by as much as 20 percent, but it never charges advertisers more per month than 30 times the daily budget.

-  Activate the account. Activation puts your payment information on file and readies your account for live campaigns. Google charges a one-time activation fee of five dollars. (A reactivation fee is also levied when a repeatedly deactivated account is reactivated more than twice. Google deactivates underperforming keywords and campaigns.)

-  Start the campaign. AdWords campaigns are under the advertiser’s control (except for Google’s automated deactivation system, which discontinues underperforming keywords and accounts). You may pause campaigns and adjust every aspect of them on the fly. Seeing the Big Picture: The Google Ad Network So far, I’ve described how search advertising in general, and AdWords in particular, run circles around blanket advertising in these ways:

-  Search advertising is democratic. Anyone can launch a global ad campaign, in contrast to the high cost and commitment level of traditional media advertising.

-  Search advertising is cost effective. This is especially true in AdWords because Google charges less than your CPC bid when possible.

-  Search advertising has built-in relevancy. Blanket advertising has builtin irrelevancy.

-  Google AdWords is a pay-per-click system. Advertisers pay for only prequalified leads, not for unqualified exposure.

-  AdWords offers detailed control of the campaign. This contrasts with the all-or-nothing blanket approach. I haven’t mentioned another aspect of the value of Google AdWords: the tremendous reach inherent in Google advertising. Google distributes AdWords advertisements in three important venues:

-  Google search results pages. These pages display Google’s proprietary search results in the Web, Groups, and Directory sections and also in Froogle.

-  Google’s search engine partners. Google provides AdWords ads to the search results pages of other engines, including Excite, Teoma, About. com, AskJeeves, Netscape, Go.com, AOL Search, and iWon.com.

-  Google’s content network. This portion of the AdWords distribution network encompasses the thousands of Web pages that run AdSense ads. These destinations, large and small, are called content sites or content pages. AdSense ads are just AdWords ads running on partner sites that are not search engines. Some of these sites are major media outlets, such as Forbes.com. Others are small entrepreneurships operating affiliate businesses or merely providing information. In all cases, Google attempts (and largely succeeds) to target AdWords ads to content pages based on its understanding of the information on the page instead of by generating them directly by keyword search. Even without the content network, your ads enjoy astonishing distribution power, appearing in eight search engines besides Google. Aggressive advertisers cover all the bases; all advertisers use Google.