I've just built a basic website and I have done as much as I can do at the moment obviously it will take its time to work its way up closer to the top in the mean time I was looking at google adwords, does anybody know how much it costs per click? as I cant find anything anywhere all it says is put your daily amount in but I dont want to put £10 if it costs £1 a click as that is not worth it. does it generate much work?
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Anybody do google adwords?
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View the thread, titled "Anybody do google adwords?" which is posted in UK Plumbers Forums on UK Plumbers Forums.
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Paulplumb
In my experience adwords blows. Use your keyword tool in adwords to try and get some quantities for certain search terms. e.g. I think in Bristol potential customers will be searching for say "plumbers in Bristol" or variations of. You will probably find only about a half a dozen people a day are actually searching for that term. That term will probably cost around £3 a click for position 1. Out of the clickers some will be your competition, some will be window shoppers, some will be telemarketers or scammers and on the odd occasion you may even get a real paying customer.
Google also likes you to broad match and not exact match your keywords so they get paid for not very relevant clicks also. If you do go ahead make sure you set your geographic area so your ads are not being clicked a 100 miles away.
Essentially adwords is a word auction. If you are in a city expect to pay over a £10 a click to be in the top 3. They reckon most people don't even scroll down a webpage so there is not much point being outside the top 3.
Sorry to ramble. This is of course my opinion and I could have got got the whole adwords thing wrong. I would personally invest my advertising revenue elsewhere.
Google also likes you to broad match and not exact match your keywords so they get paid for not very relevant clicks also. If you do go ahead make sure you set your geographic area so your ads are not being clicked a 100 miles away.
Essentially adwords is a word auction. If you are in a city expect to pay over a £10 a click to be in the top 3. They reckon most people don't even scroll down a webpage so there is not much point being outside the top 3.
Sorry to ramble. This is of course my opinion and I could have got got the whole adwords thing wrong. I would personally invest my advertising revenue elsewhere.
I have been using adwords for over 5 years. In as much as I suspected that I was being ''scammed'' out of my hard earned cash, I had no proof so just went along with it. When I reduce my payment per click amount to something like £0.50 or less, google quickly send me a mail telling me that I am loosing out on potential customers etc, so I stupidly bumb it up again.
Then in February, I got a call from a google agent. They can get me to do over and above what I want from my campaign. When I asked how much this will cost? £300/m. I declined. He then informed me that click per campaign advertisement is only good for a large business, not a small outfit like mine. ''Who advised you to advertise using clicks?'' he asked.
I hung up the phone. They tried to call but I just ignored them. When my money ran out, I just decided never to top it up again despite their constant mail reminders.
In my opinion, I reckon 50% of the clicks are from your competitors, 30% from website developers trying to sell you something or other, 15% from curious browsers, and a mere 5% from genuine ''customers''. My view, don't waste your money.
Then in February, I got a call from a google agent. They can get me to do over and above what I want from my campaign. When I asked how much this will cost? £300/m. I declined. He then informed me that click per campaign advertisement is only good for a large business, not a small outfit like mine. ''Who advised you to advertise using clicks?'' he asked.
I hung up the phone. They tried to call but I just ignored them. When my money ran out, I just decided never to top it up again despite their constant mail reminders.
In my opinion, I reckon 50% of the clicks are from your competitors, 30% from website developers trying to sell you something or other, 15% from curious browsers, and a mere 5% from genuine ''customers''. My view, don't waste your money.
It's up to the advertiser to determine how much they want to spend per click. Google gives you that option. The more you spend per click, the better chances yiu have of being found. In effect, should your competitors choose, they also then have a better chance of running up your bill for fun
I was spending around £90-100 per month but was getting around 5 calls per day 2 winters ago
I've found servicing and repair work
to be very expensive through Adwords but then I've had some good jobs from it also.
I tend to keep a close eye on it and turn it on and off often.
i did use a management company as they had a promotion on who managed to get my cost per click much lower than I have, but the adverts they keep control which annoyed me.
all in all, it's not a game changer but can have its place, the biggest benefit is it is instant on/off.
to be very expensive through Adwords but then I've had some good jobs from it also.
I tend to keep a close eye on it and turn it on and off often.
i did use a management company as they had a promotion on who managed to get my cost per click much lower than I have, but the adverts they keep control which annoyed me.
all in all, it's not a game changer but can have its place, the biggest benefit is it is instant on/off.
I tried adwords for about 48hrs and cancelled it before I made myself bankrupt
You can bring your cost per click down quite a lot by avoiding search terms that the big sheds will also use.
For example. When I started I used terms like 'Bath' 'Shower' etc. and it was costing about £3 per click to get on page 1.
I now use words and phrases that are more defined and not shared with the sheds like 'Bath installs', 'shower rapair' I have the settings set to include both words together in those two examples. These cost about 80p per click.
Other search terms are along the lines of 'Bolton plumber', 'Plumber in Bolton', 'local plumber(s)' etc. - these cost about 40-50p per click and I have it so only people within a set distance of me see the ads.
Try not to use words and phrases that are ambiguous because you'll be competing with more people that way and driving up your cost per click.
I like adwords, it's been turned off for a few weeks though because I have enough work on, when I do turn it on I keep an eye on it and usually get a few jobs per week for a few quid.
When I first started I was losing money on it very quickly with no return and almost binned it off, it's worth putting a few hours aside when you first set it up to try and get a decent grasp of how to use it in a smart (read - inexpensive) way.
You often get emails from Google with £25/30 worth of credit if you do something like start a different campaign or incude one of their analytic tools on a page of your website. I've taken advantage of these every time and had about £100 of credit off them over the last 12 months, together with £50 free credit for a promo code when I first set it up so had a good amount of free advertising with them.
It's worth noting that having an active adwords campaign helps with your websites' Google ranking, every time the adwords ad shows up it's another backlink that improves your websites ranking whether the ad was clicked on or not.
For example. When I started I used terms like 'Bath' 'Shower' etc. and it was costing about £3 per click to get on page 1.
I now use words and phrases that are more defined and not shared with the sheds like 'Bath installs', 'shower rapair' I have the settings set to include both words together in those two examples. These cost about 80p per click.
Other search terms are along the lines of 'Bolton plumber', 'Plumber in Bolton', 'local plumber(s)' etc. - these cost about 40-50p per click and I have it so only people within a set distance of me see the ads.
Try not to use words and phrases that are ambiguous because you'll be competing with more people that way and driving up your cost per click.
I like adwords, it's been turned off for a few weeks though because I have enough work on, when I do turn it on I keep an eye on it and usually get a few jobs per week for a few quid.
When I first started I was losing money on it very quickly with no return and almost binned it off, it's worth putting a few hours aside when you first set it up to try and get a decent grasp of how to use it in a smart (read - inexpensive) way.
You often get emails from Google with £25/30 worth of credit if you do something like start a different campaign or incude one of their analytic tools on a page of your website. I've taken advantage of these every time and had about £100 of credit off them over the last 12 months, together with £50 free credit for a promo code when I first set it up so had a good amount of free advertising with them.
It's worth noting that having an active adwords campaign helps with your websites' Google ranking, every time the adwords ad shows up it's another backlink that improves your websites ranking whether the ad was clicked on or not.
i tried it in london but its realy for the big boys i think blocked toilet was about 15 quid a click
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