Should I have Adwords from day 1?

I will be starting my Australian website early next year.

Are there any users or SEO guys/gals out there who can advise me on whether it is worth going with Google Adwords from day one or am I better off advertising on more traditional publications like newspapers or Yellow Pages?

Adwords and Overture will deliver people who searched for what you have. As long as your site is finished and allows people to place orders/sign up then this type of advertising would be a good start.

As far as other more traditional means that will depend on a huge list of factors, all of which I am sure you have already researched when you did your initial business plan (a must whether anyone needs it (bank for loan, etc) or not.

Be sure to read up a lot on how your adwords ads should be written etc to make sure you get your ROI as high as possible.

The nice thing about using AdWords as soon as your site is ready to be seen by potential customers is that you don't have to wait for indexing or good rankings. You're out there where customers can start finding you. I'd go for it.

Thanks guys!

I think I'll go with Adwords from day 1.

I am designing my campaign now but not activating it until I am ready to do business obviously!

There are two positions on Google. Ads on the right hand side and ads at the top. What is the difference?

Unless you are putting a huge amount of money into the campaign, you will be along the right hand side. The top is for major spenders.

I see...

Well it seems the best way for me is the Adwords campaign then!

Do you find it is best to have product specific ads or just general ads? e.g I am selling many brands of DVD media. Shall I just do one for DVD Media or a specific type of media like DVD-R or DVD-RAM or even a specific brand?

You can do both and watch your stats to see what does better...I find that you should have multiple ads (I have around 35 for one site) that are tailored to each keyword or group of keywords. In other words, don't have one ad for 50 keywords that is general like "We have DVDs".

You want to "qualify" people before they click so that you have an increased chance of making the sale.

Also, you can link to subpages...Don't put an ad up for ABC product and then make them go through 3 clicks to find it...deliver it on their doorstep.

There is a whole lot of trial and error but put the time into writing effective ads BEFORE you go live...It will be worth it

Right you are!

So how many keywords do you think I should do per ad?

e.g I would like to do an ad for a general catchall like dvd r. Then I have more specific ones like Ritek Printable DVD-R which would have it's own product page.

I take it it's a bad idea to have the general key word dvd r for both these ads?