Competition on the internet is fierce and to profitably sell products a site needs consistently to attract more visitors than its rivals. To get the word out, advertising is needed to increase website visitors and consquently, sales. But where does one place the advertising? There are hundreds of directories online as well as classified advertisement sites, to say nothing of the giant which is Google Adwords, but here we're going to concentrate on Yahoo.

As with other search engines, Yahoo directs potential customers to websites as a result of search words and phrases input by the consumer. The pages resulting from the search are displayed, in order of popularity but you have probably noticed that above, below and on the right hand side of the search results in Yahoo there are sponsored advertisements. These companies are willing to pay when someone clicks on their advertisement and ends up visiting their website.

Sponsored search with Yahoo works like this. The advertiser chooses the keywords which will result in their advertisement being shown. For example, if you sell skin care products, you may wish to designate "moisturiser" as one of your keywords or a phrase such as "remove wrinkles". However, you do have to pay for this method of advertising, as opposed to enriching your website with keywords and hoping that it appears in the search listings, but it is a lot easier on your time. It's all dependent on how much you're prepared to pay for your keywords. If your competitor is willing to pay 30 cents when someone clicks on their advert which is shown when the word "moisturiser" is input and you only want to pay 10 cents then the chances are you won't get the traffic, but if you meet your competitor's bid then you have an equal chance of your advert appearing and attracting the traffic.

You need to sign up with Yahoo Sponsored Search, then you need to create your advertising campaign by firstly deciding on the keywords which are most relevant to your website. Next you need to create your advertisement which consists of a title, description and URL, then you decide on the maximum price that you are willing to pay if someone clicks on your advertisement. Bear in mind that you only pay when someone clicks on your ad, not when it is shown as the result of a search.

If you have struggled to increase your website's ranking in the search engines by keyword optimisation, updating content, writing articles, etc. and your time is valuable, you may wish to consider the paid method of advertising which will drive visitors and hence potential customers to your website much more quickly, so take a look at Yahoo search marketing and see what you think.