Google Adsense pays you money in exchange for being allowed to publish paid-for ads on your web site. The clever thing is that ads are related to what your users are looking for on your site. If used correctly they can both enhance your site and make you money.

So how does it work? Google provides you with its AdSense HTML code, which you place on your web pages. Then, Google automatically “reads” your pages and decides on best ads to display.

It uses a sophisticated algorithm that includes such factors as keyword analysis, word frequency, font size, and overall link structure of web. It says it knows what a page is about and can precisely match Google ads to each page.

AdSense also uses geo-targeting to serve Google ads to your pages that are specific to a user's region and language, based on their IP address. This means that ads that are served to a user from Australia may be different than those that appear for a user from Canada.

If a visitor clicks on one of ads they get taken to advertiser’s web page and you get paid cash – easy!

Well, not quite. First you must have a site with plenty of visitors, otherwise it isn’t worth effort. Secondly, your page must be set up in such a way that Google stands a chance of working out what you are trying to promote or sell. In essence, you need to look at your page title, headings and initial copy to make sure that Google matches right ads to your page.

For example, on my page devoted to digital photography courses, I don’t want to advertise rival courses. So what I do is ensure that first words on page are “digital cameras”, not “digital camera courses”. That away, Google shows ads for companies selling cameras, not training courses.

Don’t expect to earn a fortune. Google is a bit cagey about its ad rates, but you typically earn a few cents per click. Advertisements for casino or other gambling sites could make you up to a dollar or more for each click though.

On downside, very nature of Google Adsense means that users navigate away from your site, which may not be in your best interests.

Unfortunately, glory days of search engine placement are long gone and it is getting harder by day to get a good position.

If you want to be found nowadays you are going to have to be far more canny – and probably lucky too.

The first step is to make sure that your site works correctly, with no missing links, images or other nasties. Then you need to make sure that all your pages have “Title” tags. These generate wording that appears in blue bar at top of Internet Explorer and also appear in returned listings when you run a search.

A title tag like “Welcome to Mish Mash Communications” is all well and good, but it doesn’t really contain any real search terms. That is, if someone is searching for “Mish Mash Communications” you will probably be found, but a title like “Mish Mash Communications – experts in corporate communications strategy” is better and richer in keywords.

In fact, “keyword rich” copy is secret to a good search engine placement. Make a list of 20-30 search terms that you think people might use to find your site and then make sure those terms appear towards top of copy on your pages. You can spread them across a number of pages, but as long as keywords appear in title tag and towards top of page you will stand a better chance of being found.

The jury is out on importance of Meta Tags nowadays. These are invisible keywords and descriptions that have to be added to your pages. They used to be used by search engines to index your pages, but are no longer seen as relevant.

Once your pages are ready fun starts. The first search engine worth registering with that is still free is Google. First, check that your site isn’t already registered by putting full URL into Google’s search box. If it isn’t you can submit URL at http://www.google.com/addurl.html. Google says that you only need to add index page as its spiders crawl rest of site automatically. In my experience this doesn’t always work, so it is best to add each relevant page.