I have an informational site, with some limiyted amount of commercial tie ins. I have been using adowrds to drive traffic for very defined words I do not score high in for the regular SERP's to try and get additional traffic (all the while trying to mold new pages to hit high for those key words in the hopes or removing the adwords when I score well for those keyywords).
OK, so I know that adwords is supposed to be to generate sales... but I do not have sales to generate. I saw in another thread discussions that some people only look at adwords for commercial info. That is what got me to wondering if I was wasting money.
On the other hand, I can get very high rankings for very little money- most are 5 cent bids. Because I am so targeted, I am getting great click-through rates- 7% and higher. Since there is no "commercial" aspect for these words, I am typically at position 1 to about 1.3.
Also, because they are so targeted, I think I am getting people who want my info...
So I am getting 25-30 people a day for a couple bucks... not a tremendous outlay.
So, what do you think? Wasting my money... or taking advantage of a good rate for a few extra hits a day?
Thanks!
dave
Remember - Google (AdWords) can only drive traffic to your site. Your website has to do all the selling.
By the way, I would also recommend running a small one week campaign at Overture to see if Overture's traffic converts.
Paying for traffic is an interesting first step for attracting viewers, and after that it's a matter of positive word of mouth and good linkage. I like it.
Of course, there are other more time consuming methods to accomplish the same thing (time spent developing links, waiting several months for proper indexing, etc.). But at a certain point you have to step back and ask yourself "how much is your time worth?"
Are you spending $2,000 worth of your time doing what $50 of PPC could accomplish? (attracting immediate traffic and building word of mouth)
I can see splitting the difference and going the PPC route if it's cheap enough-
An intersting post...
I don't think Adwords should just be about driving sales.
Ultimately, people build websites because they want their target market to visit them.
A site without traffic is no fun - and if Adwords can deliver targetted traffic in a cost effective way then go with it!
Thanks for all the responses! A lot of goot info to think about.
Yes, a non-paying visitor DEFINITELY has value to me- I consider it important to get "the word out" about my site.
I probably should have been a bit more informative myself. The site I am speaking of is an existing, well-establishged site (but that does not mean more people cannot learn of it, and benefit from it!) It is a niche area, so my keywords are very targeted, and thus I am thinking I am getting very qualified traffic.
This site averages 330,000 hits a day, about 15,000 visitors a day, and is a PR 6. Adwords adds a drop in the bucket to that... 800 visits in the last month. But the cost is low- 40 bucks or so... and like I said, these are pretty qualified viewers. And, the keywords I use are places my site does not currently show up for well in the SRERPS.
To me, that fairly low cost is no big deal... and I think I am getting qualified traffic... so, I think in my little world, this is good.
Slightly OT... but I was thinking of expanding these same words to Overture. However, I have concerns. I REALLY am opposed to the Gator thing- to me that is unethical. I am pretty sure there is no way to exclude yourself from the Gator when at OT, right?
My other concern is lack of negative keywords. That, to me, is the beauty of GAW! Take the fairly broad subject my site deals with... circular widgets. I want people who want more info on circular widgets, so that is one of my main keywords.
But there are also a LOT of people who want to d/l free circular widget programs, which we do NOT do (nor will we- just trust me on this- it is illegal!) So I have d/l, free and other related words negative on GAW. I do not beleive I can target this wat on OT, right?
The other option is to target more specifically with XXXX Circular widgets, but that would be 100's of words.
I like the idea of the exposure OT brings, but I think I might be paying for a LOT of junk traffic...
dave
I do not beleive I can target this wat on OT, right?
Because Overture and Espotting do not use the same methodology as Google by default your ads will not show for those permutations.
Like anything, you need to do your homework, if you type "free circular widgets" into the Overture suggestion tool and it defaults to "circular widgets" then you know that will be a match driver (I don't think it will as long as you don't put the word free in title or description).
Otherwise, if you don't want traffic for it, then don't bid on it. It's not rocket science.
We look at ALL search strings generated by Google, and you'd be stunned at how much rubbish you get clicks for where it's totally irrelevant to what you want, but search is in the eyes of the searcher, their interpretation of your ads cause them to click or ignore.
I don't see why this would not work at Adwords if you feel it is worth it.
In fact I might try this with my next site on Adwords just to try them out.
carfac, if you bid on phrases that do not get enough click throughs don't they drop you?
>>> We look at ALL search strings generated by Google, and you'd be stunned at how much rubbish you get clicks for where it's totally irrelevant to what you want
That is what I use negative keywords for... you would be surprised how much rubbish you can get rid of withthose, too!
>>> if you bid on phrases that do not get enough click throughs don't they drop you?
Kind of. I have some words that have only matched 1-2 in the last month. If, after 1000 imporessions, you have a CTR of less than 1%, yes, they do drop you... but you would kind of want to get dropped anyway, if you are performing that badly. My words that matched 2 time in the last month have a 100% CTR (two for two) so that means they are well targeted! But if you have a keyword that is like at .04 CTR, you should probably refine it more to get the CTR up... and probably to reduce the rubbish!
If I used, say, widgets, that is WAY too broad, and I would get lots of searches for triangular or square widgets--- and I only have circular ones. So trefining them words is good!
dave
