Google AdWords is a great way to attract traffic to your site. Publishers create their account, design their ad and then select keywords which they want their ad associated with. The system allows publishers to spend as little, or as much as they want advertising their website in a highly targeted way.

As we all know, US presidential candidates are all pretty much sold on the 'e-campaigns thing'. They have so far been using blogs, YouTube, MySpace & Facebook amongst others to promote their message and ask the electorate for votes. Some candidates' web teams are realising the power of AdWords campaigning, as candidate names are beginning to appear in that familiar ads window to the right of normal search results.

Wired.com did a test on the keywords that bring up candidates' ads. One search they tried was 'Giuliani divorce', which amusingly did bring up the official Giuliani ad.

Using AdWords for politicians and political parties is a good idea. It is cheap, near universal in reach and can be targeted very precisely to specific keywords. For the equivalent of a few hundred pounds a year, parties can attract visitors who want specific information, which could lead to higher membership uptake via the web and allow parties to directly communicate with people who have expressed an interest, via their Google search.

Labels: adwords, Giuliani, Google, SEO