Imagine advertising and knowing that you are guaranteed to be noticed ahead of your competitors. The good news is you can - it's called Pay Per Click advertising (PPC) - but you need to take advantage before it's too late.

Starting at around 10p per click the entry cost is low; only a visit to your website triggers payment and you can outbid your competitor. Leon Edwards, who runs The Marketing Helpdesk, said: "I don't have a predetermined notion of how I'm going to advise clients but I would say that PPC should be on 99% of company's short-lists. In some ways it's dream marketing: it gets results, it's measurable, it's accessible and, for the moment, it's cost effective."

As a small company, the time to get involved is now: as it becomes more popular the bids will get higher and it will become harder to get noticed at an affordable price. Eventually the cost will become prohibitive for those with small budgets. As with all marketing, you can easily get it wrong so here are Leon's tips to making PPC work for your business.

Keep it focused: Don't be tempted to pick every keyword you can think of in order to get maximum exposure. Instead pick the five to ten most relevant words or phrases and increase the amount you spend per click.

Make you headline work: The headline needs to do two things: get people's attention and then filter out the people you don't want. If you only do the first, you will be paying for clicks that will never result in a sale.

Use landing pages: If you've worked hard to get the right people to your site don't waste the opportunity by sending them straight to your home page. Prepare a page that has a message relevant to their search - it shows them they are in the right place and gives you another chance to convince them to buy.

If you would like to know more about Pay Per Click advertising or how The Marketing Helpdesk could help your business contact Leon by calling 0870 220 2490, visiting www.themarketinghelpdesk.co.uk or emailing b4b@themarketinghelpdesk.co.uk.