The following SQL script checks if a certain column exists in a certain table, then prints some text to the output window. I'm getting into the best practice habit of creating SQL scripts that can be re-run without any errors and this is useful in checking to see if a column already exists before altering the table and attempting to add the column.
IF
EXISTS ( SELECT 1 FROM information_schema.columns WHERE column_name='COLUMNNAME' AND table_name='TABLENAME')
BEGIN
PRINT 'This column exists!'
END