Setting Up Adwords.

ultimatetouch

From the guys that have used adwords. Are there any tricks to setting this up or bidding on words? I set up my account and started putting key words in but I havent made it live yet. I am thinking of starting with a modest 250 a month. Does google anilitycs help you track whats going on with adwords?

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Ultimatetouch
Illinois Remodeling Company, Kitchen Remodeling Chicago, Room Additions Illinois

Second Look

I'm sort of in the same boat, having just entered the credit card info last night, to pay for my Adwords. Talk about modest, I'm starting out at $30 a month but it's limited to one town. If it works I'm more than willing to spend additional money, as I would love to become less dependent on lead services.

As a former IT professional, I sort of understand the lingo and whatnot and I gather that Google Analytics doesn't really tie in with adwords too much. Analytics will tell you what site visitors were at before they came to your site, and where in the world they are located. Analytics may tell you it's an adwords visit, but I don't think it will go into keyword detail.

What you are probably interested in can be found here:

https://adwords.google.com/select/specifyreport

If you can't generate a report, you may not be using the "Standard" version of Adwords (I'm using Standard). You start out using "Beginner" version and must graduate to Standard (one way street) in order to gain some additional features. Naturally, the additional features could involve added work on your part.

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Second Look home improvement www.SecondLookHome.com
Handyman and Home Repair Specialist in Rhode Island
RI Licensed Lead Safe Remodeler/Renovator, RI Registered & Insured Contractor

DerrickVWS

Unless you are targeting very generic services, $200 is more than enough to give it a good trial run.

ultimatetouch has the right idea with limiting it to a specific town. I'd recommend using a radius limit from your office address unless your region would be better services by using city names as limits. We usually do 100 to 200 miles as the radius.

I've stated this in a different post, but be sure to target your services that provide you with the highest profit margins. Bid into the top 3 for those services. Otherwise, you can usually get good results if your ad is coming up in the Top 10 somewhere.

The only real benefit Google Analytics will offer you is the ability to see what Google Affiliate sites are clicking on your "content ads". Content ads appear on Google affiliate sites and other websites that use Google Adsense. I believe this site, contractortalk.com, uses Google Adsense. I'd recommend just using your Google Adwords reports at first. You can always add Analytics later.

One other thing we like to do is set a "conversion" point on the website. Some contractors use coupon request, free guide request and "contact us" web forms. The Google Adwords conversion script is placed on the Thank You form submission page. A conversion then is someone who submitted the form on your website and turned into a potential lead. When you look at your Adwords reports, it'll show you those conversions in reference to what keywords they used to come into your website. This can help you determine which keywords you should spend more money to improve your placement and possibly increase your leads. Alas, there are no guarantees. (Side Note: If you add in Google Adwords' conversion script to your website, you might as well ad in the Analytic script while your editing your website.)

I hope I didn't confuse you. Good luck with your new Google Adword campaign!

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Derrick Delliquadri
Vision Web Services | Contractor Websites

DerrickVWS

Here is some good information regarding region targeting. It'll help minimize worthless clicks on your ad from people 1,000 miles from you.
https://adwords.google.com/select/targeting.html

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Derrick Delliquadri
Vision Web Services | Contractor Websites

ultimatetouch

Is it possible to bid on individual words or only the group of keywords?

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Ultimatetouch
Illinois Remodeling Company, Kitchen Remodeling Chicago, Room Additions Illinois

Second Look

Yes. You can bid the same amount for every keyword, a different amount for each word, or any combination in between.

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Second Look home improvement www.SecondLookHome.com
Handyman and Home Repair Specialist in Rhode Island
RI Licensed Lead Safe Remodeler/Renovator, RI Registered & Insured Contractor

DamionR

If you are not using Adwords... I STRONGLY recommend it. This should be your best form of advertising.

Think about it - your ad appears when someone is looking for your service (obviously, much better than blasting it out to a bunch of people who are not)...

... plus it's completely performance-based. You only pay when someone clicks on the ad - so that wonderful "branding" crap... you get it for free.

In case you missed it - they have relatiely good training video's available at https://adwords.google.com/select/library/index.html