Google Pay Per Click

marc

Does anybody here use Google pay per click? I guess you use keywords and that puts you at or near the top of the list and when someone clicks onto your website you pay.
I am seriously thinking of doing it but would love some feedback.

George Z

Marc,
there has been some talk here about that.
I have been a proponent of it. Do a search here,
you should find lots of information.

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Grumpy

I use it, I pay a few hundred per month. I get alot of hits on my website, and I have tracking software so I know alot of those hits turn into lead requests.

There are many strategies to using pay per click. It can be expensive depending on area and the services you offer. I could easily pay $5 per click for the word "chicago roofing". I feel that pay per click is a great enhancement, but your site should be built to generate top ranking for all the most common, and expensive, keywords... then use the pay per click for the less common and obscure key words.

Romex-Racer

I have used Google Adwords and can say with confidence that it is a huge waste of money. Thousands of impressions results in dozens of click throughs which results in perhaps one phone contact which does not convert to a sale.

Rampant click fraud and poor control of advertising regions translates to a very poor marketing model. PPC advertising works for internet based businesses but not for trade services.

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Grumpy

Wrong. I am proof otherwise. I'm not going to argue it, but numbers don't lie.

Also google has many types of keywords. Searches only? Searches on partner sites? And content matches which are banners on the top of sites like thsi one?

I lost my ass on content matching. I eliminated anything having to do with "partners" Yeah my click through rate went down but google is the most popular search engine, so I still get plenty of estimate requests every day.

A second component is proper site design luring the customer to request an estimate. Plaster your phone number 4-5 times on each landing page. And also plaster "request estimate now" links or "contact us" links all over the landing pages. Perhaps place a contact form on the bottom of those landing pages.

Don't link directly to your home page. I send all my shingle roofing to one page and all my commercial roofing to another, and all my gutters to yet another. Infact when you check my server logs, my home page is NOT the most common entry page.

George Z

With about a million impressions and 7000 clicks in a year, I disagree.
All the leads we can handle for less than $15.00 each.
Great leads, the ones with high closing rates at our price.
Click fraud? With 7000 clicks never being an issue. Besides with a great
web stat program, you can stop that.

It doesn't work for some people, works for others is the correct answer.
I have sent my google reports to couple of people here they can verify it works great for us.
You just have to do it right.

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Romex-Racer

OK boys, I'm gonna re-evaluate my Internet marketing and direct traffic to specific pages and do some of the other things you suggest. I have an open mind and if I can make money, then I'm happy.

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Mike Finley

Test, test, test and test some more. I'm not a fan of PPC and there are literally hundreds of thousands of people using PPC and losing money and don't know it because they "think" they are getting leads from their PPC, or it seems like they are making more than they are spending... there are also hundreds of huge national companies that lose money on purpose on PPC for lots of other reasons who buoy the concept.

I've been a user of PPC since 1997 and not since those early years have I ever seen it have a worthwhile ROI. But obviously there are some here that are able to make it pay, just make sure you are one of them and not one of those people who "think" it is working.

AAPaint

Hey George, I have that same great web stat program, but it seems many times when I click to find out where a PPC visitor came from I get nothing...am I being scammed?

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-AAPaint

AA Quality Painting & Pressure Washing LLC
Jacksonville Painters
Jacksonville, FL.

George Z

Adam,
A direct visitor will not show as it is someone that typed your url or clicked on your link.
When I click on the Go (referrer column), it shows the search page
the visitor came from. If you are listed in the organic or PPC that's where they likely came from.
If you appear in both and you really need to know I guess you can
cross-reference with the adwords stats. After you get too many visits
you won't have that much time to scrutinize.
Check for click-fraud by checking the IP#. I wouldn't worry about someone visiting a few times
even a competitor would do that to check you out.
Keep an eye for a massive number of clicks from the same IP#.
It never happened with us but it happened to other people.
After a while, a certain steady flow of leads is usually an indicator of how many visits you get.
Anything unusual should become obvious.
Don't forget to set your geographical radius.

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Grumpy

Also don't waste your money bidding on the common keywords. Bid on thousands of uncommon keywords and pay the minimum per click instead of a few bucks per click.


Alot of people have cookie blockers on their computers for security purposes. This is why you get blockers. I paid a developer to write a piece of software that sits on the back end of my website. It's sole purpose is to log what site someone came from before they entered my site, called the referring URL. When someone enters my site it stores the cookie and when/if they submit an estimate request by webform it autmoatically submits that referring URL with the estimate request. I find this most handy and worth every penny I spent.