[Steven Butler]

Do any of you do your own adwords and if so how did you learn? Are there any good books for example?

[tim handley]

some clued up geeza on here will come up with a workshop teaching addwords/seo, etc etc, maybe it will feature heavy on a tacca day, it will be full and i will be on the front row!!!! Id love to be able to manage my own addwords/seo/whole online marketing, i kind of come from a generation that just missed the  IT boom and im   trying to keep up,  and not doing too well......
also, im out cleaning carpets most days and just dont have the time.............

[Mike Halliday]

Massive amount of online information about Adwords plus once your campaign is up and running ring up Google and ask them to look at your campaign and makes some suggestions on how to improve it.

I rang Google to ask why one of my campaign was disallowed they told me what I had done wrong and then went on to give a full review of all my campaigns, running through various changes that would increase my response..... I spent over an hour talking to them( they are in Ireland I think as every time I have spoken to them the person has been Irish)

[Ian Harper]

Mike

The approval has bugs. I have had this resubmitted it with just a dash added and its ok, the take dash out resubmitted and again its ok. They have change something with urls and I think this can also be an issue with the way you enter it try different ways.

Steven Butler

Its really about the school of hard knocks at first. its going to cost you money to learn. Its hard to explain but here is an example. I have to have two different campaigns one with just the local town for "carpet cleaning" then one county wide for "carpet cleaning southend" when you think about it makes sense as most people outside town will use the town name and most people inside two will not. and if those in town do they are covered by the county wide campaign.

The above saves lots of clicks. on the subject of clicks you really need to have a way of finding out in real time the clicks on your site so you can block people.  you can see who is clicking and whats going on you need to make the call as its your money they are spending. within adwords settings you have a place to put their ip so they dont see the advert any more.  also dont use the same ip for your adwords  as your seo site as this will cause ranking issues for you. Google does not like to see the same url in adwords local and seo, it does happen but you dont have control over this and they can remove or cause anyone of them to have a negative affect on any one of them.

The amount you pay for each click will vary a lot but this is why you need to track you costs and know the average cost for each customer from adwords. this is important as this will give you your price. you need to reinvest all your adwords costs and add to it over time making your war chest bigger. just know your adwords cost plus your overheads (do profit and loss every month) and how much profit you want to make.  these three numbers are key to success

The average price you pay for each click really is not up to you. its the market that really decides this. This is why you need to know your numbers as how every much this price per click is you can and should pay it as everyone in the adwords market has to pay this cost. If you decide to have control over this cost then you will be putting yourself at a disadvantage. just look at it as the price or cost of each customer. I love this as it really gets to the point of marketing because once you know the cost of the customer its up to you on how many you want to buy -) this works for any repeatable marketing method.

As I said the market decides what the cost is and what works not us.  tracking and testing is key. you should always being trying to bet your best advert in any given media. standing still is like giving up on how much work you can get from that media.

BTW I am a conspiracy theorist when it come to google these guys are number experts they are well above us. Let me put it this way if your in a casino they can see you stack of money this is what they want, they will do everything to keep you at the table bring free drinks food etc. this attention is the same with google the amount of money you have in your adwords account I think but can not prove will have a direct connection of the impressions you get. I just get more the more money in my account. why would google not do this? no point giving attention to the guy thats poor.

As you can see its not really about the how to set up a campaign within google more about to way you manage it. google will clean you out if you dont. Good luck

[jasonl]

This question is like someone coming on here saying I want to clean my own carpets whats the best machine, except learning adwords skills is a more lengthy process than learning to clean carpets, and once you learn google change it and mix it all up again, hire a professional, be aware of how and why your money is spent, monitor returns and you will earn from it. I have a guy from an agency run mine and the reports he produces are huge , well out of reach of the average carpet cleaner who read a book.

[wayne zabel]

Does anyone do Adwords even if they are constantly the top of page 1 organically

[Mike Halliday]

I'm yet to see any screen shots of campaign pages which are run by 3rd parties like CCN, I think the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and how much the cost per click is and how it converts to actuaL jobs.

How much is everyone paying for the keyword *yourtown* carpet cleaners ?    I doubt I will get an honest answer to that question as it is the modern day equivalent of asking "how much to you charge?

Adwords is more complicated than I first thought but until someone  shows me that by using a company to run their Adwords and are paying 65p to a £1 for the most searched keywords  I can't see why they use them.

We are not insurance or pension companies or sex shops who might pay £15-20 a click, we are carpet cleaners,  we are in the £1.20 -£1.60  range

[jasonl]

Does anyone do Adwords even if they are constantly the top of page 1 organically

I do , that is why I am top ish , inspite of what google say you can bribe your way way to the top.

[bennymon]

Mike in my area carpet cleaning Guildford is somewhere around £8 per click . So not viable I've had a couple of people try to do something for me including the carpet cleaning network but they said they just couldn't make it work .

[Mike Halliday]

That's the  bad thing about Adwords it's the carpet cleaners who have created that price....... they have chased each other up to £8.

Imagine if they all got together and agreed to all just bid 50p

[bennymon]

Correct mike and the stupid thing is the company's in my area that have pushed it up there are all cheap . Most calls I get from google are just asking if I'm cheaper than the others . If only they all realised if they all put there prices up there would still be plenty of work for everybody but less hours and more money .