What Do You Want to Know About Google Adwords?
By Hitman | October 19, 2009
Just got back from Houston…
When I was there, I figured out something that may REALLY help your advertising.
See, when I talked with several cleaners at the Roundtable, I found most of them weren’t using Google Adwords. And the few that were, weren’t using it the most profitable way possible.
Some are paying $6 per click. YIKES! If you’re spending this much on all your clicks, something is wrong.
Pay-per-click campaigns like Google Adwords can easily be one of the most profitable advertising media for you. Lots of cleaners are getting up to 15 to 1 returns.
But you gotta set your campaign up correctly. Using a few tricks won’t hurt either.
So I want to know exactly what you want to learn about Adwords.
- What don’t you understand about how pay-per-click works?
- What’s keeping you from making lots of money with Adwords?
- Are you having trouble getting it set up?
- List any other question or concern you have…..????
Give me your comments. Tell me what you’d like to learn about Adwords.
Win a FREE one-hour consultation…
I’m going to give one person a personal ONE-HOUR consultation to help get your Google Adwords campaign making you the most money possible. This is a $200 value, but you can win it FREE just by making a comment.
Any comment can win as long as it’s a thought out question. The winner will be chosen randomly.
Tell me what you want to know about Adwords by seeing the “Comments” link below.
Topics: Carpet Cleaning Websites | 39 Comments »
39 Responses to “What Do You Want to Know About Google Adwords?”
Questions and Comments
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October 19th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
What do you consider a good click thru rate and once you get the customer to click your ad are there any good tips on getting them to actually pickup the phone or fill out an online form.
October 19th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Adwords confuses me. Help on setting up my account properly would be great. Do you have any videos on this?
October 19th, 2009 at 5:48 pm
Hi John,
The biggest concern I have is waking up to a monster invoice from google and not even seeing a job from it. How do you control what your paying?
Ken
October 19th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Hi John,
We’ve been researching how to run Google Adwords campaigns (due to a new website launch coming soon) and I’d like to learn more about writing ads that work.
October 19th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Hi John,
I have been using AdWords since I started my business last November. I am running one champaign. I love the potential that AdWords has but have been frustrated by the number of clicks I receive. I am budgeted for $3.33 a day ($100 per month) which results in one click per day. My average Cost Per Click is $2.37. I have had lots of impressions but low click through. Is this due to my budget ???
Data from AdWords below.
All time
Clicks 261
Impressions 120,229
CTR 0.22%
Avg. CPC $2.37
Avg. CPM $5.15
Total Cost $619.31
Thanks,
Gerry
October 19th, 2009 at 6:41 pm
I just Started using Google Adwords last week I have maybe received 3 clicks in the last week. I have over 1000 impressions on my yahoo account but only 1 click.My Question: What is considered a good CTR for the Carpet cleaning Business? I Know my Ad is not that great but assuming is a great ad what can I possibly expect? Thanks Anthony
October 19th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
I see Sponsored Ads from Carpet cleaning companies in cities 200 miles away from thiere service areas. When I look at there website they claim they only service there local surrounding areas (50 mile radius) Why do service companies month after month advertise Google adwords in areas they do not service? Am I missing something?
Thanks Anthony Reyes
October 19th, 2009 at 6:53 pm
I have a campaign going with one ad but have no idea whether it is doing any good. I’ve set $2 per click as the amount. Would a second ad for water damage be a good idea to increase results? I find Adwords confusing to understand and find Analytics even moreso. I’m going to try a one on one consultant to help me make sense of it.
October 19th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
You mention Google Adwords above. I Know Yahoo,MSN & ASK are not as large. But do you feel the same about working with these companies as you do about Google? Is the ROI Comparable?
Thanks Anthony Reyes
October 19th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
All of my campaigns consist of around 40 keywords.Does this number sound about right of does a good carpet & Upholstery cleaning campaign usually consist of Less or way way more like in the hundreds?
Thanks Anthony Reyes
October 19th, 2009 at 7:03 pm
You know, I listened in to your call on Pro Cleaners last week and made a comment of paying up to $8 per click and you ignored it.
There are guys actually spending up to $13.00 a click here in Phoenix!!!
I started with google about 6 months ago and searched for the lowest cost clicks, thinking I would have a niche that most others wouldn’t mess with. Well, google keeps telling me in my campaign each time I log in that my bid it too low for the first page listing.
So I keep raising it and up it goes again!
I just decided today, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!! I cannot
spend over $8 a click. Google is nothing but Bait & Switch themselves! Too bad you don’t see THAT on the 5 O’ clock news! But you see all the bad cleaning companies being exposed due to their tactics.
Hey… these days… I don’t blame the bait & switch companies. All I get is people calling asking for the lowest price and I am already at 3 rooms and a hall for $79! I cannot go any lower.
I feel most of the people have got it comin’ to them when they care less about real quality.
October 19th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
You mention $6 per click being high. My understanding is that the amount you pay for a click is determined by Googles bidding system.Can people in New York City(example) actually only pay $4 per click for carpet cleaning ad. What if others have set there bids really high to try to get front placement?
Thanks Anthony Reyes
October 19th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Hey guys,
Wow. Lots of great questions. Don’t have time to answer them right now, but I’ll see about making a video or something to answer the others.
Ron and Anthony, $6 is somewhat high, but I know it’s not the highest amount being spent. Yes, there are ways to set up your campaign so you are paying less per click.
The important thing to remember is, you are paying for clicks and not for placement. More on this later….
Keep the comments coming…
October 19th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
$6 a click is cheap. Do mold remediation, and the clicks can be $35-60 each. Granted the jobs are much larger, but it is hard to digest.
October 19th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
Right, $6 is on the higher side for carpet cleaning, but some may pay upward of $8 or more.
The point is, you can pay less per click if you target the right keywords–and I don’t mean the keywords that Google tells you to use.
Until later,
John “Hitman” Braun
October 19th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
I get a decent number if impressions and I like the way the adds look, and everyone else I ask says “Looks Good” but im not getting the clicks I would like to see. Are there key phrases that work? I have experimented with many phrases and with many variations of the ones that have shown results. Any input?
October 19th, 2009 at 10:25 pm
My domain name is http://www.drynaturalclean.com The name of my company is Healthy Home Carpet Cleaning. Should I try to find a domain name with my company name in it (HealthyHome.com and others were not available)Does the domain name tend to change the click rate? Thanks Anthony Reyes
October 19th, 2009 at 10:29 pm
Do You recommend Using some type of Adwords firm to manage campaigns? Say I was doing campaigns with 3-4 search engines. In the long run is it better to just handle and maintain these yourself? Are there experts who can manage my campaigns so that I can get a better ROI? Any recommendations? Thanks Anthony Reyes
October 20th, 2009 at 12:42 am
Hi John,
I would like to know how to set up a single adwords account for different key words without paying the same per click for key words that aren’t worth as much.
Thanks, Michael
PS. Did I win?
October 20th, 2009 at 1:50 am
As one new to online marketing, would like to know how to s/u an effective ad that a prospect can click on and be taken to a lead capture page offering a free item – perhaps a report of some kind – in return for their contact information.
October 20th, 2009 at 2:08 am
I’ll be randomly generating a number with an online “Random Number Generator.” He with the blog post number chosen will win. I’ll probably do it on video in a few days.
But you’ve still got time to win. Ask your question.
October 20th, 2009 at 2:39 am
What exactly is an impression? If someone searches one of my Key Words in my geographic area but my ad does not appear does that still count as an impression? Thanks Anthony Reyes
October 20th, 2009 at 3:06 am
See what happens when you offer something for free John, everybody wants the free one hour consultation with “The Hitman”
I have the question everybody wants the answer to:
How can I get first position for one cent for all my keywords…lol
October 20th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
I have been using google adwords for my oriental cleaning website and have seen a good return most of the time because oriental rug cleaning done the right way is a niche type business rather than carpet cleaning i found it better to go after smaller cities than big areas with google i found a better return on dollars when doing this. joining a networking group like BNI has abetter return than google for carpet cleaning if you have the time to commit i just landed a 900$ tile cleaing job after 3 visits to a free networking group.
October 20th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
I want to learn how to set up a google adwords account. I also want to learn more about the pay- per clicks how it works and what it does for you.
Thanks.
October 20th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Adwords is confusing. Video basics would be great.
October 20th, 2009 at 8:04 pm
So far,
I’ve been able to make a living off of adwords and organic searches. My conversion tracking is set up and I’m testing different ads. I noticed that, as you have mentioned, that carpet cleaners and carpet cleaning are the best key words. To fine tune what I’ve got going on would it be best to just use carpet cleaners + city and carpet cleaning + city set up as phrase matching and exact matching? I’m hoping this will yield the same impressions without the high cost of the most expensive key words without the city after it.
October 20th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
Landing pages, click throughs, and conversions;
I’m doing some testing to see which pages yields the highest conversions. I’ve heard that it’s better to have several ads with different landing pages because the audience/client needs are all a little different.
Some say just a little copy w/a call to action on the landing page and others say never have your homepage be the landing page. I guess it depends.
John, your home page has the form to complete which is easily accessible. Do you find that the form is a trigger that gets the conversions? I know it’s not just about having a form on your home page. What would be your list of “must haves” that makes the conversions?
October 20th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
Great question James. It doesn’t matter how much traffic you’re getting if your site doesn’t convert lurkers into clients, right? That’s something I cover in detail in my Internet Marketing Class. Your site MUST sell.
A quick list:
Benefit driven headline
Phone number readily displayed with area code
Call to action in several places (not just once)
Inquiry or estimate form
Pictures of you, your employees, and your truck
That’s the bare minimum…
October 21st, 2009 at 4:32 am
I get around 60-80 unique visits per week. Most jsut go to the home page. With pay per click I am getting 2-3 clicks per day with the average cpc $3.50ish. My issue is getting those lookers to become callers. How do we do that?
thanks,
Glen
October 21st, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Ok, I’ve been trying to figure out how to get the cheapest key word, or phrase, and tell me what you think. If the keywords carpet cleaning and carpet cleaners are the highest CPC, then if I do broad, exact phrase, and exact match with cc + my city, then google would charge me for that instead of the key word “carpet cleaning” or carpet cleaners alone.
CC + my city is definitely the cheapest way to go because I won’t be competing against everybody else in the country. I’ll just be competing against those in my area.
“Carpet cleaners” and “carpet cleaning” are the most expensive but if I add the city to it, which you have to do anyways, then the cost is dramatically reduced!!!
So, if this is correct, then I should be able to get the same number of impressions if I remove CC by itself?
Does this make sense?
October 21st, 2009 at 9:56 pm
Another question I have John is about using negative keywords, have you found it helpful?, does it improve your score?.
October 22nd, 2009 at 3:16 pm
I have tried Google adwords and had little success. I am sure there is a rhyme and reason to do it successfully.
October 22nd, 2009 at 6:24 pm
whats the difference or more profitable Google
add words or At&t’s so many clicks per month example 30 clicks you pay $90.00 a month a 1
year agreement your guaranteed 360 clicks?
October 24th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
I’ve tried Adwords and had a little luck. But then my competition started using it and made my cost per click go to $4. How can I pay a lower amount?
October 25th, 2009 at 5:16 pm
Hey John, I’ve done fairly well with setting up my website and tweaking keywords for better placement.
I just started fooling around with Google Adwords (after your webinar on Procleaners network)
I’m in Columbus Ohio, actually way out on the East Side… and I’d rather not clean on the far side of Columbus, due to traffic, time, etc…. So we have a handfull of smaller communities all around. I know with adwords you can select the metro areas. Have you had any luck focusing on the smaller communities? Or are you better of just advertising Carpet Cleaning Columbus Ohio?
In 1 week, I have had about 600+ impressoins, but no click… Trying to use catchy headlines, but no bites yet.
I do get a slow trickle of calls from the internet and they are QUALITY customers, very few price shoppers… but it just seems slow in my area.
It seems like some guys in certain locations of the country are doing very well with the internet, have you gotten word that some areas are still slow to warming up to the net ?
Thanks for your input! and Thanks for the Great material on your website.
Tim
Continental Carpet and Upholstery Cleaning
October 26th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
One of the first things beginning with ad words everyone should know is customizing service area. Doing cleaning searches by zip code in PA, brings up sponsored links of companies across the county. As a cleaner, I like checking to see what they are doing in their area. Advertising outside their service area cannot do well for ROI.
Reading the comments and questions. One question
that comes to mind it; How many Quality Carpet Cleaners will be put out of business due to Google?
Suggest a blog going over Cost of Google vs. actual or percieved return. The return is actual or perceived money ($) brought in from this ad.
I see some outlandish costs, with little return suggested if any at all. Clicks on home page along suggests little if any return.
October 28th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
I tried to set up a number of links to my site to improve traffic. Number of clicks went to practically nothing. How much should be invested monthly to get at least a 3 to 1 return on investment?
October 30th, 2009 at 12:08 am
I restrict my key word serches to my home town area, but this is State College PA… is this a problem , as state and college can confuse serches.