Google AdWords offers low-cost route into online advertising for SMEs

Bester said that more than ten million South Africans are already online, with the number of people with access to the Web growing by the day.

Many of them are integrating the Internet into their daily lives as a channel for buying goods and researching suppliers and service providers. This market, representing the country's middle-class and rich consumers, can be cheaply and easily addressed using Google AdWords as a medium, said Bester.

Google is the most visited website in South Africa according to Nielsen/Netratings, making it a good choice of place to start with online advertising. AdWords is a low-cost online advertising vehicle. It is cheap, easy to use, efficient and highly targeted, said Bester.

The advertiser simply signs up on AdWords and bids on keywords believed to be ones the target market will type in the search bar when they are looking for a product or service. When a user types a keyword query matching the keyword list, the company's text ad may be displayed to the user.

The right search words are key

For example, a plumber in Sandton could bid for the keywords "plumber Sandton" and the ad and a link to the plumber's website could be displayed on the right hand side of the Google search results page when a customer types in the search term.

"It costs just R50 to sign up to Google AdWords (adwords.google.com) and then you simply pay for the users that click through to your website," said Bester. "The price you could pay might be as low as R3 to R5 per click, although the higher you bid, the higher your ad will appear on the list of sponsored links. And you can place a limit on the amount you spend each day."

Bester said that these prices are very affordable compared to offline media, even classified ads or ads in the community press. One could start advertising for as little as a couple of hundred rand a month. This type of online advertising is extremely targeted and helps one to reach people who are already interested in the products and services your business is offering, Bester noted. Someone searching for an electrician in Waterkloof probably needs electrical work done sometime in the near future.

"For many connected South Africans, Google is the natural starting point when they're looking for an Italian restaurant, an electrician or a new motor vehicle," Bester said. "They use it to look up telephone numbers, compare prices and identify potential suppliers. AdWords lets you advertise directly to them when they're conducting searches relevant to your business."

Results are measurable and billing is only clicks to the website

Bester said that many smaller businesses that spend money on advertising in offline channels such as print, outdoor media or local radio stations suspect that they might not be getting the bang for the buck they deserve. With Google AdWords, however, he claims the advertiser will know how many people have responded to the ad, and will only pay for the clicks that come through to their website. If the advertiser is not getting the website hits hoped for from the ad, it is a simple matter to change the keyword bids to improve the results.

"This is far more efficient than paying for a newspaper's theoretical subscriber base, without knowing how many subscribers noticed your ad or how many of them are interested in what you offer," Bester said. "If you're doing it right, online marketing can be of immense value to your business, at a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising channels. With the increasing number of experienced internet users in South Africa, you simply can't afford to ignore the internet any longer," concluded Bester.