There are two reasons to love Google AdWords above all other pay-per-click search engines.

The first is obvious: Google is used 200 million+ times a day.

The second reason is that AdWords rewards advertisers who are ‘smart’, and punishes advertisers who are ‘stupid’. In AdWords, ad placement is only partially determined by how much you’re willing to pay for each click. The more important determining factor is how high your ad’s click-through rate is.

What this means is that a well written and targeted ad can rise in placement, even if the actual cost-per-click for that ad is set low. In simplest terms this means the little guy (me) can compete with the big boys (giant corporations with mega advertising budgets) and win.

One of the best ways to do this is by employing ‘sideways thinking’, or thinking outside the box.

For example, let’s suppose you want to promote an online gambling site. Well, every Tom, Dick, & Harry knows that all the obvious keywords for this (gambling, online gaming, gamble) are already going to be used by all the other people out there who are running ads for online gambling sites, and those keywords are going to have very high bids on them.

But if you ‘sideways think’ this product, perhaps you can get to the same (or a similar) audience without even competing for those keywords. Keywords like: Atlantic City fun, things to do in Las Vegas, Bugsy Segal, Rounders, high stakes, etc might bring your ad to the same interested audience at a fraction of the cost. And if your ad copy is good and incorporates your keywords, you should see your click-through rates jump through the roof. And since Google likes and rewards high click-through rates, your ads will climb in position, even against all big-money casinos that are bidding $20 per click on the regular terms like ‘gambling’

Now understand, the above is only an example off the top of my head. I don’t actually promote online gambling products and for all I know the keywords I’ve suggested aren’t really workable; this is just an example of how to ‘sideways think’.

But once you’ve learned to ‘sideways think’ your product’s market, you can compete effectively in even very crowded markets – and blow the big boys right out of the water.