Do Adwords work??

[altaimage]

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“they might increase your ad cost, but they will also push up your click-through rate and quality score, therefore positioning you higher in the search results.”

Not necessarily true – if you get a high bounce rate from these walkthroughs it can be seen negatively in some eye’s.

You can also set up benchmarks that will reveal walkthroughs from CPC campaigns and these stand out from the crowd when you get repeated walkthroughs. You can even get geographic placements for these results too and surely overtime you will see a pattern emerging. Maybe it’s just the cynic in me but like Bridie said – she wondered if this sort of thing happens and the fact of life is – if one person thinks it’s possible then someone else has already been out there and done it!

Again – like you CSM – I do run ad campaigns and I do advocate on the behalf of adwords – if used correctly. It can and does help but without a good inner knowledge working of these systems and their uses (and or abuses) you won’t be able to capitalise on a great SEO campaign.

All the best everybody – happy SEO!

[altaimage]

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Good points too Aidan – gets us all thinking doesn’t it – and I agree with the SEO comments you made about drying up – when the goalposts change it’s always hard and since SEO and net marketing is constantly evolving it’s always good to bump into people who have the same passion to get things right as we do.

All the best and excuse the short response, just got a hot tip on the Melbourne cup!

http://www.altaimage.com.au

[CSM]

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Yes, but then those bounces can easily get picked up as invalid clicks. Google is pretty clever…And every campaign has a number of bounces. This is just par for the course and you account for those through a sound business model.

But without trying to be pointed or argumentative, (for my own personal interest and knowledge), does anyone have a real story of this happening? I.e competitors running up clicks.

You have to think to run an effective adwords clicking campaign you would need to use some serious resources…Those resources would be much better spent running your own adwords campaign and out budgeting your competitors.

I would think (maybe I’m too much of an optimist) that people who are smart enough and with the budget to run an effective adwords clicking campaign would be smart enough to use that budget in more beneficial ways.

@ Aidan, I agree with you wholeheartedly that SEO is not free or sustainable without any ongoing work. It amazes me how many people think once you’re up there, you’re there for life!

[CSM]

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altaimage, post: 54711 wrote:

Good points too Aidan – gets us all thinking doesn’t it – and I agree with the SEO comments you made about drying up – when the goalposts change it’s always hard and since SEO and net marketing is constantly evolving it’s always good to bump into people who have the same passion to get things right as we do.

All the best and excuse the short response, just got a hot tip on the Melbourne cup!

http://www.altaimage.com.au

Good luck with the cup!! My money’s on 20, if anyone’s interested

[Jexley]

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Frequently (in certain competitive circles) Google reports to me on the clicks for the week, and for some of them my clients simply don’t get charged for them. They have a gymnasium full of guys with alphabets after their names spending all their waking moments how to make the most money they can out of this little game, do you think Click Fraud is really a fear these days? They’ve worked out who’s being naughty and credited the account, so I have little fear of that kind of thing.

Aidan’s exactly right that most people blow their budgets with improper keyword matching and targeting the wrong audience. In this respect, it’s probably more effective to hire somebody (like he or I) simply because there’s still a lot to know about it and Google will happily spend all of your money and not show you anything for it.

As for SEO and the ever-changing goalposts and constant upkeep for rankings, I think a huge majority of that is bulldust. If you do it right the first time, you should fear no algorithm change.

Google gives us the rules, in as simple a format as they’re comfortable conveying, and all we have to do is follow them. I’ve built an entire business around “Doing all the little things right” in SEO and I’ve got clients owning the Top 10 and I haven’t done a thing for years now because I fixed up the foundation for them and then they just looked after their site.

It’s simple and any business owner that’s got the time and energy to devote to their website can see success. If they need an SEO’s help to get there, then that’s alright, but they sure as hell don’t need an SEO to keep them there monthly. I firmly believe that’s a myth conjured by the snake-oil salesman that are out for a free ride, and I’m ardently against it.

/rant

All that said, there’s heaps of good and free information out there, and if it’s worth your time you should check it out and see what you can work out yourself and what you need a professional to do.

Granted, sometimes I embarrass the hell out of myself when the repair guy comes over, takes one look at the washing machine and raises his eyebrows at me with, “You tried to fix this yourself didn’t you?” and I have to hang my head sheepishly and give him an extra $20.

But still, if it’s not always in the cards to splash out for this stuff, it’s not crazy to try it on your own and do heaps of research first.

Good luck!

[Aidan]

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Ahem,

my quote from earlier today:

“…My two cents

(and $10 each way on Americain in the Melbourne Cup) …”

So did anyone follow this good, nay excellent, advice?

LOL

Aidan

[Jexley]

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Aidan, post: 54756 wrote:

So did anyone follow this good, nay excellent, advice?
“Nay”

I totally see what you did there!

CLASSIC.

And I totally bet “Americain” because wife told me to. I was all “Honey, just because I’m American doesn’t mean I’m locked in on this horse” and she was all “SHOOSH, I’m having a feeling…”

Same feeling netted me $10 last year! Whoo!

[Aidan]

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Aaahh puns…

I was on Americain because its European (I’m Irish/Aussie) and it likes the wet conditions…

I won a bit more than $10 though, cough…

[Jexley]

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Aidan, post: 54759 wrote:

Aaahh puns…

I was on Americain because its European (I’m Irish/Aussie) and it likes the wet conditions…

I won a bit more than $10 though, cough…
Yeah, French if I heard right over drunken mother-in-law’s flourishing fascinator and prawn cocktail.

Mate, how long have you been here again? Because there’s enough Aussie in your accent for me to have thought you were Scottish in origin.

*ducks head* Sorry!

To be fair, sister-in-law’s Irish-born but has been here so long that she gets asked if she’s Canadian more than I do! (from Montana, right near Canuckland border).

Was a good race and a good day and I echo the Great Banjo’s sentiments that there simply ain’t nothing like Melbourne Cup Day anywhere in the world. Simply awesome.

[Aidan]

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20 years now Judd, those in the northern hemisphere say I’ve gone all Aussie, though those here in Oz say I’m still Irish – lucky I have dual nationality

International man of mystery… groovy baby…

Between you, Gabe and I, it looks like there is quite a foreign influence in small biz online marketing here at FS!

[Anonymous]

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Don’t forget AnaLucia boys… she has a very exotic accent too!

As I’m sure do many others who I just can’t think of at this exact moment…

[Anonymous]

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Ah, scratch that… just realised you were talking about exotic-sounding web-folk… and I’m now guessing online hammock marketing doesn’t count?

[Vossey]

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Good old Melbourne cup, it really does stop the nation!

As a follow on from does Adwords work, I think it is fair to say that they do if you look at some of the longevity of campaigns via a service like Spyfu.

But Google has perfected the art of making adwords into a truly competitive market (in an economic sense) so they get to extract the max dollar from the revenue stream while the advertisers bid against each other until they reach a place where advertising cost = marginal value of sale.

Those who succeed using adwords have tested, tested and tested some more with lots of keywords, ad copy and controls.

And – I didn’t see it mentioned, of some importance – is the quality and content of the landing page. One niche I’ve been doing SEO in recently has small businesses spending >$1,000 on adwords with ads pointing a disgraceful pages from a quality and conversion perspective.

They might have the best ads but conversion is poor at the landing page stage. I think the equation looks a bit like. Value of sale must be > Cost per click X conversion rate

So the story is….you can make it work, but you need to test and be better at the whole game than your competitors.

Cheers

[Aidan]

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Yup, it was mentioned early alright, though in different words

“… some people just don’t get it that they still need to have a unique, or at least competitive, offer attractively presented to site visitors in such a way as to prompt action…”

[brandon yanofsky]

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There’s a lot of people saying use SEO. I’m a huge advocate for SEO. But Adwords does have some advantages. SEO usually ends up being cheaper per viewer, but the viewers tend to convert less. With Adwords, you pay more per viewer, but each viewer tends to convert more.

It really depends what you’re doing on your site. If you’re selling a digital product for $150, adwords may be great because you have the margin to absorb the cost of adwords. If you just want to get people to visit your blog and aren’t making money, SEO is a much better choice.

[Author]

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