[Mike Osbourne]

I'm sure you all keep a close eye on your Adwords stats but earlier this week I checked mine and had 99 clicks in one day.

My first thoughts were a 'competitor' is playing silly bvggers as I'm lucky to get 1 click a day.

Checked my ad and it was for mobile phone ring tones :

It had only been active for one day (last Sunday) and clocked up £40.

From what information I could find it is possible to hijack someones adwords remotely given certain circumstance.

I have contacted Google and have yet to get a reply

[prodry]

It may be beacause as a default adwords sets you up to appear on google + search engine partners (like aol search etc) and also sets you up to appear on sponsered pages.

The first two are fine but the third are the horible little ads you see down the side of usually crappy sites and some forums. The owner of the site gets money from google for every click from their site to yours.

Make sure you cancel this option by unclicking this box. This system is open to abuse by the owners of these sites. There is no benifit on appering on these types of sites. Someone looking at a porn site in Australlia for instance is not going to need a carpet cleaner in some town in the UK. 

[Mike Osbourne]

Prodry

Will check that out. i recently upgraded to their standard product and there's a lot more there to get your head around at first.

[prodry]

In the process of taking my prices of my site so not 100% sure what the effect will be.

IMO price to low and you will get lots of price shopping soap dodgers and lose any chance of getting higher prices from jobs you know you could have got much more from. Also if you put prices high or low if they see your site and prices they then have a benchmark and will ring the next cleaner who doesnt advertise their prices for a quote to compare. He then has a better chance of converting them or getting a higher price.

I am still getting enquiries from the new sites without prices and converting them ok. I did have 3 piece suite price of £69.00 on my old sites now I have no prices for suites and quoting £150.00 and have got 70% of them. Used to get virtually 100%. But now much better off.

Low prices do get lots of work. I used to put £20 a bedroom, £40 a lounge and had a minimum charge of £65.00. I have been busy average 35 jobs a week for as long as I can remember. With rising fuel costs and other interests I am hoping for a 50% drop in business and 100% rise in turnover. thats the plan anyway. I have other business interests like property maintanance and trading cars/vans. Last month I made £3500 trading two cars. Thats two weeks real hard work in carpet cleaning to earn that and has really made me think.

Many have said in the past about once you are cheap its hard to get better prices in the future. So far I have not found this to be that true and even my existing customers are now paying 50/75% more with little or no effect.

Anyone with limited advertising budget or starting out or both I would not discourage from using cheap price lists. Wouldnt want to be them though especially in the current climate and with rising costs.

[prodry]

Clinton

Website well worth having. But only any good if custys can find it. It does make me laugh when I hear people saying my website does not work for me. Then you do a search for a carpet cleaner in their area and their site is on the 3rd page or doesnt even show.

Its like never buying a lottery ticket and then complaining, that you are so unlucky that you never win anything on the lottery.

The internet works well for myself the and likes of others on here, namely the ones that actually appear on the first pages of search engines. The costs now for a site are peanuts and even if you only get a few jobs a week from it. Its is without doubt one of the cheapest forms of advertising.

If you want a basic, usefriendly site like one of mine with hosting, domain name, email, design, control panel etc. that is search engine friendly I can get my brother to do you one for £75.00 for the year.

Michael

info@pro-dry.co.uk

[Aquakleen Restoration Services]

Thanks Mr O - changed my settings now!

[prodry]

Clinton

info@pro-dry.co.uk

Rough idea of what you want pics if you have them etc.. Seeing him tommorow. He would knock something up first for you to look at before you decided to go ahead. He is a student and works part time at a printers/design company.

Michael

[Ian Gourlay]

Michael

My rough maths put your turnover at over £2000 a week with 35 jobs

With little advertisiong cost on internet.

You must be doing a llot of miles not to make a profit.

Not sure how you fit everything in.

Property Maintence

Car Trading

Ebay

Etc unless you have staff.

Anyway  well done

[prodry]

Ian

Miles, costs and time are the problem.

I did have 4 helpers (all self emloyed) at one time. - My father in law but he is slowing down and always on holiday. My cousin but he is concentrating more on the electrical side as he is a qualified sparky. Also employ two friends on a self employed basis (on the maintenace side).

We have had some good times doing it and earned some good money. Just finding with rising costs want to do less for more.

Have had a difficult last 12 months with a divorce and have held back from trying to employ anyone else. Will be looking for someone else soon.

Many on here do diversify though want or need. As do you I beleive. Makes life more interesting IMO.

[Mike Osbourne]

I see my thread as well as my Adwords have been hijacked. 

At least it's not costing me money. Still no response from Google, definatley kicking it in to touch now.