So how do I get started with pay per click advertising

Setup an account with pay per click providers?
PPC advertising services are offered mainly by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft Adcenter. With all of these it is fairly simple to setup an account and get started.

With any of the accounts you will need to setup the campaigns, ads and choose keywords that will make the ads appear when people search.

So which one is the best to start with?
Currently Google Adwords is the most popular and so it would be logical to start with. It is also reasonably easy to setup and get running and their support system is quick and effective.

First visit http://adwords.google.com/select/Login and click on the Start Now button. If you have not done anything like this before then it is best to use the Starter Edition.

You will work through a number of steps including where you want the ad to appear and what you want to put in the ad, the keywords to choose and how much you want to spend each month.

Then you'll need to setup you Google account information and finally the payment information. As soon as the payment information is processed the ads will start running within a few minutes.

This will be a very basic setup, but will do to get started. The great thing about all of the pay per click accounts is that they are very flexible and so you can go back and change almost everything about you ads and campaigns at any time.

Getting someone to help such as a Search Marketing Agency
You don't need to go through all of the pain of setting up your own account if you don't want to or feel it may be too difficult. You can use a Search Marketing Agency.

These are a relatively new type of advertising agency that specialise in helping people with their pay per click campaigns. They will do all of this work for you but will obviously charge for their time.

It could be worthwhile using their services if you are planning to spend quite a bit on PPC or if you thing you spend on the advertising is more than it should be.