The first thing you need to do is sign up and get yourself an account. To do that head over to the Google and at the bottom of the screen click on the ‘Advertising Programmes’ link at the bottom.

Then:

• Click into the Adwords homepage

• Click ‘try now’ at the top right of the screen

• Select the standard edition (you need to have an active website for the standard edition, if you don’t have an active website you are not really at the stage to start experimenting with Adwords!)

• On the next screen it will ask you if you have a Google account, you could have one for gmail, Google Adsense, Google Analytics etc, all of them will give you a Google account which you can enter at this step. If you really don’t have one or want a fresh account associated with Adwords (it is a lot easier just to have one account trust me!) then click the button that says you don’t have an account and it will ask for some details to create one for you.

• If you have used an existing Google account you can then sign in to your brand spanking new Adwords account, if you have created a new account then you need to click the verification link in the email they have just sent you to confirm you are the owner of that email address, then you can sign in.

Then create a dummy campaign to get yourself started.

When you log in click on the ‘create my first campaign’ button and you will be taken through the campaign setup process. Just enter dummy information in, put in a dummy name, choose any country, put in a fake ad (just fake not silly as if that makes it to an editor you’ll be in their bad books!) and choose your keyword as ‘123456789’ or similar so it will not actually show.

Once you have finished setting up your campaign it will show you a summary screen where you can check everything is ok – then click ‘continue to billing’

There you enter your billing information, select your timezone and agree to the terms and conditions, if you select direct debit payment you will have to wait while that goes through the system, but the other options mean you can start advertising straightaway.

Personally I use a credit card payment at the end of the month, but you also have the choice to do prepay where you deposit money into your account for Adwords to use, this will reduce any risks on your behalf as if you were to accidentally leave an ad running that built up a huge bill then with the credit card option you’d have to pay, if you used prepay then the ad would just stop running after the money in your account ran out.

Please note there is a $5 - $10 activation charge for your account that they will bill you for after setup.

The choice is yours, but just make sure after you setup your billing that you go to the ‘campaign summary’ page listed at the top of the screen and tick the checkbox next to your dummy campaign and delete it!

Otherwise you may get charged for the advert showing up!