[Mike Halliday]

Let's talk about Adwords!!!

Who's doing it  ?  How much are you paying per click?

The way I see it is adwords is  effective but  has zero shelf life,  your advert is showing only as long as your campaign is active,  the moment you stop  the marketing  money  you have spent on your campaign  ceases to produce  work.

But if it brings in a profit so what

Plus is it worth paying less for a click by using an exact Match headline  so the quality score is higher but the term being generic or use a less relevent headline but pay more which might get more clicks.

Any thoughts.....?

[stuart_clark]

I tried ad words last year Mike, I ran the campaign for about five months, it payed for itself but that was all , think I would rather pay for more seo rather than £250-£350 a month on adwords because as you say as soon as you stop paying Google, your ad disappears


Stuart

[Mike Gwilliam]

Adwords in my mind is becoming nonsensical.  As above, far better to to focus on organic.

Be inspirational......... One of my web sited is based on something entirely different.

Google Ripped Body No one position and put some effort into your web site

[Lewis Newby]

Without starting an adwords vs organic debate, i get a decent return from adwords.

The think is when you google something like carpet cleaning 'place' i see my whole phone screen is the top adwords, scroll down and its places/maps for another screens worth. Then organic!

Not saying its better, but your picking up the ones who cant be bothered to scroll. Adding an offer seems to work well too.

I have just signed up with a managment company to try and get my cpc down and hopefully more jobs for my money. a few days in and not showing my ads, when i edited my own ads tehy showed immediatly . Il give it a few weeks and bin them off if no good.

[Mike Halliday]

I was hoping I would get some replies about how much people are paying per click,  especailly  the guys using carpet cleaners network who are using professionals to create their campaign , but I guess PPC  costs are sensitive info

But here's mine from January....

..

[Radek Jablonski]

Mike I was with CCN, all they promises were a lies, for me anyway.
If works for others fine.
They can not get lower ppc if others are bidding, it is not posdible.
They promised me 50c per click and I was paying over 2e, more and more instead of lower. They promised number 1 in google natural search and I wad 50th, after 2 months position did not change, no backligs generated etc etc.
In my opinion they are good marketers not a profesionals.
If anyone goes for them then ask for what they promise to be on the contract and if not done within some period of time money back.

[Lewis Newby]

Mike, before signing up to a managment company last week -(still no calls)
My best performing keywords were costing around £2.27-£2.76 per click.
£200 budget gave me £1400 worth of work. Im pretty new start up so flr me im pleased

[bennymon]

Hi mike no luck with adwords  so after asking a few guys about the carpet cleaning network and getting good feedback decided to try it after 2 months I only had 2 enquires . One guy now says he doesn't think it will work in my area but since  then they have phoned and think they can sort it and I'm going to try one more month . I will keep you updated .

[davep]

Now Google have switched to just showing 3 local firms on the maps the organics are closer to the top.   

[Radek Jablonski]

bennymon
I pay less for my own adwords with many ph calls then I paid for CCN with no results
I guess that ccn works for those who has no competition on adwords and their own adwords could be even cheaper.
Their website must not be good for customers, looks too simply, poor.
Do not waste your money, if it did not work it will not work.
As I said, many promises without any guarantee, no matter what results are you need to pay.
My today adwords cost me 9 euros including car valeting ads and did one emergency job today 70, booked another upholstery 100 and one small valet 50. But not sure if it was from adword clicks, google places or natural search. What I know I was quiet when with ccn and busy enough when I run ads myself.
Not sure as I am no expert but from what I can see you can not run ppc lower if not possible, want to be number 1 then you  bet with your competitors and goes very high, but no need to be nr 1, nr to may cost 50c when nr 1 over 2pounds.
Also make sure that they will not look after your campaign every day, they just say it.

[CleanerCarpets]

CCN charge £300 plus VAT to 'build the site' - the site is the same for everyone so they don't build it.

Just the text is changed to match the specific company and to try to optimize it for that company. That's less than half an hours work - a big cost for that. The hosting for them will be peanuts.

They then charge £75 plus VAT to manage your adwords campaign - money for nothing and no work, running a local campaign for a carpet cleaner isn't rocket science and takes no management daily if you set your budget so you don't get nasty bills.

Then you have your adword account cost - the amounts you pay per click - thats the only cost you would have if you do it yourself. If you use them and give up after 2 months they are quids in any way because you paid upfront for the site!

So do yourself a favour, make sure you have a nice website of your own and do your own adwords - they have no secret formula - they just charge you for a template site and to 'manage your campaign' and of course you lose that site if you pull your payments - thats means any traffic to that site was pointless when if you do your own they are always going to your site and you keep feeling the benefit.

Google will take into account the time the website has been running so chopping and changing domains isnt any good.

Invest in your own site, not others or online directories.

[Radek Jablonski]

exactly
any good about them is if they get website to the top 1 of google and this is why i started with them, but this was a lie.
For the money I spend I could have already  pro website I could use for adwords.
Plus the contact with they accountant is horrible. Paid the set up charge in december and deal was that invoice should be dated for January. Still dont have this. No invoices or any proof of payments done for the adwords that could be used for accounting.
The person who contact/deal with you on the startis just a good marketer and a lier.
You ask for the things to be changed on the website they do 30% of it, you ask again they do another 20% of it, then you give up.
Not recommend nit at all, unless they improve customer service, contracts with the money back guarantee, and or no set up charge charged.

[Mike Halliday]

Just had my bill from Google......  its outrages!!

How do the get away with such daylight robbery ?  27 clicks and the want me to pay........



Look out for my new ebook titled  ' how to pay pennies for your clicks' priced £800....... or pay early to my offshore account  at the great price of £250

[tim handley]

a one day course on add words/seo etc would be a good idea i reckon.........

[derek west]

Heres a very rough outline of what will be taught at the tacca day.

PPC Seminar
1)      Introducing myself and what I am here for today.

2)      Brief Introduction to Adwords and SEO, attendees what I will be discussing and when.

3)      Informing them what level the seminar will be tailored for –maybe Beginners to Interim level.

4)      Type of Paid Search, but informing which one I will be focusing on i.e. Google Adwords

5)      What is Google Adwords

6)      How it works

7)      Setting up your PPC account

a.      What to preparation is required

                                                    i.     Your Location

                                                   ii.     Your Products and Services

                                                  iii.     Landing Pages

                                                  iv.     Budget control

b.      How to set up your first account

                                                    i.     Type of account to setup (Display, Search Only etc). Lets focus on Search Only today.

                                                   ii.     Creating your campaign

                                                  iii.     What Keywords are

1.      How to Research them

2.      Working out initial price

                                                  iv.     What Ads are

                                                   v.     Ad Extensions

                                                  vi.     Billing details

                                                vii.     £75 Coupons!

      Measuring account performance

a.      Google Analytics

b.      Google Adwords Conversions

c.      Implementing the above two

d.      Setup Goals

e.      Creating reports

9)      Optimising your account

a.      Match types

b.      Negative Keywords

c.      Geographical Location

d.      How to write great Ad copy

e.      Understanding Quality Score

f.       Call To Action’s

g.      Mobile devises

h.      Scheduling

10)   Closing points

a.      Other types of campaigns (Display, Remarketing, Call Only)

b.      Where to get help from

c.      Tools available like Google Adwords Editor, WordStream

11)   Questions & Answers

 
SEO Seminar
1)      What is SEO

2)      Difference between SEO and Paid Search

3)      Advantages and Disadvantages about SEO

4)      General Intro about how SEO works

a.      Onpage Optimisation

                                                    i.     Meta tags

                                                   ii.     Title tags

                                                  iii.     Other Tags

                                                  iv.     Content & Content Strategy

                                                   v.     Optimisation of Images

                                                  vi.     Sitemap

                                                vii.     Integration of Google Webmaster Tools

                                               viii.     Integration of Google Analytics/conversions

b.      Off Page factors

                                                    i.     Inbound Links

                                                   ii.     Content

                                                  iii.     Social Media Signals

5)      Outsource? To  a so called SEO agency?

a.      Why people outsource?

b.      How do find an SEO Agency

c.      How to Vet the agency

                                                    i.     Due Diligence

1.      References

2.      Review’s

3.      Sounds too good to be true?

                                                   ii.     Specialisation

                                                  iii.     Check Portfolio

                                                  iv.     Local or doesn’t matter?

                                                   v.     Ask to see an example of a site they may have optimised and its rankings

                                                  vi.     Contractual Period. 12 months I hear?

                                                vii.     Their costs

1.      Setup

2.      Ongoing

3.      Charging VAT?

4.      How can I measure my ROI against what they charge?

                                               viii.     What Strategy they use?

                                                  ix.     Country where all work is conducted from? UK? India? Tim-Buk-Too?

                                                   x.     Reporting

1.      Frequency

2.      Sample Report

3.      What to look out for – Hits? Keyword?

                                                  xi.     Tools they use

1.      Which tools ? And Why?

                                                xii.     Hidden Costs

a.      Development / Changes to website

b.      Graphics

c.      Copywriting

d.      Do I really need to outsource?

6)      Questions & Answers
..................................................................

May not be all of the above but will be tailored to give everyone a good understanding of adwords and SEO so those who are struggling can at least, make a decision on who to hire or at the very most, encourage them/you to find out more and do it all yourself. Hopefully my wife will get chance to attend this one as we are more and more taking control of our online marketing.

[Lewis Newby]

Just had my bill from Google......  its outrages!!

How do the get away with such daylight robbery ?  27 clicks and the want me to pay........



Look out for my new ebook titled  ' how to pay pennies for your clicks' priced £800....... or pay early to my offshore account  at the great price of £250

Shut up and take my money!!

are these less common search terms?  The only cheap keywords i had were low search volume

[psc]

Plenty of people unhappy with ccn, but there are a couple who are very happy.

[Richard Cole]

Blimey Derek, how many days is the TACCA day, its going to take a while to go through that lot, who is taking / teaching it?

[derek west]

all that will be condensed into a 2 to 3 hour seminar split into 2 sessions. its not so much to teach you everything but more to give you an understanding of whats involved so you can  get interested in it and learn more at a later date or it will give you enough info to hire your own company without getting ripped off like i did. either way (outsource or DIY) it will be designed to put you in control of your internet marketing.  and coupled with Allan simmons database marketing it should be a really good day.

[neil 47]

Mike

Is that using longtail  keywords and did you convert any ?

And if so what where they ?

Cheers