Adwords.Google...Any Thoughts?

snciwz8

I am considering learning about Adwords.google and was wondering if anyone else in this group is doing it and how well it is working for them. Can anyone enlighten me with their thoughts on this subject.
Thanks

Crete Buster

I've got a ppc(pay per click) campaign that I started before I revamped my website to be more search engine friendly. The ppc produced very few quality leads for us. After my website was revamped, I begin receiving more leads from organic searches. If I would have revamped my website first, I would not have contracted for a ppc campaign.

I found out that it isn't very hard to rise to the top of organic searches in my segment of work. There aren't many competing contractors in my area that are actively using the internet to market. Since it is not very competitive, a high ranking can be obtained fairly inexpensively and easy.

The very fact that you are part of this online forum, probably means you have a heads up on most guys in the way of internet marketing.

So depending on how steep the online competition in your area and segment of work is, you may decide to explore other options.

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Kenny K

it is well woorth it to invest in your own site vs ppl to hundreds of contractors.

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TileLady

I was using Adwords about 9-10 months ago and I didn't get one lead from it. I had it running for months.

People would hit my website each day but only because they were interested in finding information about tiling. I had very specific keywords as well. I also defined my own custom geographic area for my ads to appear.

I chose the option to let my ad appear on 'partners' websites. Well that was a mistake! All of a sudden people from other countries were hitting my website (I have statcounter on my website so I see where hits are coming from). I went back and forth with the stupid support people at adwords and they were no help at all. I knew for sure it was something that changed on their service as to why my ads would appear in other countries when I had about a 45 mile radius for my ads to appear. I refused to pay for the hits that started accumulating from other countries and canceled it.

I'd be real careful about using adwords.

tinner666

I only use adwords for my national/international domain sales site.

My contracting sites get good generic ranking. I'm not interested in 'hits' for the sake of hits.

To be honest though, I'm only interested in prequalified contacts and referrals assure that. That websites just reaffirm to the clients that I'm for real.

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George Z

Both organic and PPC work great for us.
SEO is not free, it costs your time, or money to an SEO company.

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snciwz8

George,

I am getting good feedback from the group and so far, I'm not sure wether to do ppc. If it is working for you, can you eloborate on your success? How long have you been using adwords? How much are you spending a month? Anything else you can inform me of would be a great help.
Thanks
snciwz8

George Z

Sure,

From another post:

April:

Clicks: 1,208
Impressions: 193,642
Click Through Rate 0.62%
Cost Per Click $1.03
Monthly bill: $1,244.97

On and off for maybe three years, the above numbers are typical

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tin man

PPC works best on action keywords,not very broad keywords they tend to bring info seekers that do not convert.You must have a call to action on the landing page,like click here or get a quote now.
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Carport King

Hey ask Ed the roofer if he still has the article on thought stringing for PPC. This was interesting and it save cost on your PPC and the click thru was much better.

You use it also with your normal campaine. Your able to do it with a click of the mouse at google also. Good luck.

snciwz8

Will do thanks CK.

Falcone

Our company started using Google AdWords in April. We were okay with the results - only 1-3 clicks per week but 90% of the people who clicked hired us. Not bad when you're only paying a couple dollars per lead!

A few weeks ago I called Google for advice and they helped us revamp our program (new keywords, targeting geographic areas). So far we've doubled our click rate. If your Google campaign isn't working - give them a call and they are very helpful!

onhitch

Adwords works good only if you use the right keywords, at the right times and you have a great site to back it up. then you will get leads

mkc3190

In my experience, the wide range of results discussed here are typical. I've run several campaigns for different companies with much success. But, there were several things that had to be considered while we were planning the PPC initiative:

1) What is your goal of the PPC campaign? (Are you generating traffic, selling something, looking for leads, etc.)

2) What changes to your website, for SEO, need to be done to improve the PPC campaign?

3) What specific phrases will be targeted? What is the current daily volume on these phrases?

4) What is your expected budget to spend?

5) How will you determine success/failure? In other words, define the future criteria that will allow you to continue/stop the campaign. Examples are: a percentage increase in traffic, # of leads per month, # of phone calls per month, a specific number of new customers, etc.

Hope this helps.

Aiken Colon

I would do as much reading as you can possibly do on adwords. We spend a lot of money on our campaign, more than any other marketing.

I am going to be taking Falcones advice on calling them, although I have never seen a number anywhere. The second I get done with this I am going to find it though.

I would also stay away from the content network. That is adsence postings. Adsence is how most bloggers make their money. Get a good PR Blog and sell adsence space.

learn how the keyword settings work in adwords is probably my biggest advice. broad terms, exact matches, etc.

I am still learning by the day after a few months of using it.

I will tell you guys this much. Those lead companys that are selling you guys leads for $15+ each are getting them from adwords. So if you get good enough at it you could just generate your own leads.

JJ

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Hammer_Nail

This is an excellent SEO Forum if you are looking for good advice. http://www.v7n.com/forums/seo-forum/

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Aiken Colon

http://forums.digitalpoint.com is even better. I use them both.

Just be careful in the services section once you start figuring stuff out. Most of that stuff in the service forums is considered black hat SEO and if you don't have the traffic to back up backlinks you can get in to trouble with google.

JJ

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Grumpy

I say build your website for the most common, popular and appropriate keywords and then use adwords for everything else. You can't build your site for every keyword so you should target the expensive/popular keywords. Then like I said get a adwords account for the others.

asnider

I use ad-words and I don't know what I would do without it. obviously, having good organic rankings is optimal, but customers will still click the featured (ad-words) links over the top organic results a lot of the times.

I definitely agree that you should only show up in the search results and turn off that terrible referring site nonsense.

Also, it integrates so well with Google Analytics, you just have complete control over your marketing.

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Grumpy

I quit using google analytics shortly after installing it because it screwed with my existing tracking software which I find more useful. When a consumer fills out a form is automatically transmits the referring URL with that form. I can check server logs to see overall where people are coming from, how long they are staying, entry pages, exist pages, etc... However knowing on each and every estimate exactlyw here that person came from is supremely powerful.