Could PPC Work For Me and my website?

[salescvexample]

Hello All,

My core service is CV writing for Sales people.

I dont know much about PPC but do know its a hard thing to do correctly.

In your opinion, if I do some research and trial PPC for a month and spend say £200/£300 I would see some return?

With that said my service costs £25.00?

Would it be better to make a landing page to capure data?

Any advice would help a lot!

Thanks.

 

[fisicx]

Simple answer: yes.

But not with you current site. Can't help here as site reviews are only for full members but it's as broken as a broken thing in the shop full of broken things. Pages are just not loading at all for me.

PS: your service costs £9.99 not £25.00

 

[notionfresh]

it could work but the only way to know for sure is to test it!

 

[salescvexample]

Hi fisicx,

The internal structure is bad and it is defo a bit of a mess, this I know and it's only offering £6.99 for a CV template as I have not not launched the site as of yet so not offering my full CV rewrite service.

I am not a website builder and only have a basic understanding and did the site my self.

Is this something you could maybe help me with? I need all the help I can get, maybe if I could pay for someone to choose my key words and set up the campaign then I could try and manage it just to get me started and keep the cost down?

Im not trying to break the rules as I'm not requesting a site review just interested to find out of PPC can help me in my industry, with a PPC cost and effectivness etc...?

The site is

 

[fisicx]

Yes PPC can work really well and generate a lot of business. But people clicking on the adverts want to have their needs met. Which means building PPC landing pages.

So the solution is to spend the next XX months learning about usability, accessibility, web design, marketing, conversion strategies etc. Or pay someone to build the site for you. And then pay someone else to write your copy.

You need to decide how important the website is for your business and then calculate you much you need to invest to make is successful.

 

[Janeadams770]

Yes PPC do helpful for all, but only on that condition when you are working on right condition with appropriate keywords. Which do help you a lot.

 

[Ninja Commerce]

Hi Scott.

Just a tip, if you are struggling with the website try wordpress, it is a dodle to set up and pretty easy to make it look nice without any real technical knowhow. If all else fails though you should be able to get someone else to set up a simple site for you for maybe £100 and then hopefully get a little guidance on how to use it.

Once you are around the learning curve it should then be relatively easy to optimize for PPC.

But to answer your question;

Yes I do think PPC could work for you. However I must warn you, the vast majority of PPC campaigns make a loss when first set up. Getting it to the point where it is profitable usually takes a lot of testing and tweaking (to both your landing pages and your PPC ads).

If you have money to spend I would suggest you start by investing a small amount in making your website look really good, and then trial PPC gradually.

Also, yes I do think that data capture rather than immediate sell would give you the best ROI in the long run - but you never know until you test.

Ideally you should just aim to get your PPC campaign break even, because as soon as you achieve that you can increase the volume and it will pay for itself whilst you tweak it further.

Hope that helps.
Regards, Mark.

 

[newagemedia]

One of the great things about PPC is that it provides immediate results; as opposed to organic search, which tends to be a longer process, (albeit cheaper in the long run in regards to associated cost per click). The key area to effective PPC management is ensuring that your search terms are targeted at relevant "buying" consumers, and that the maximum bid per click is low enough to provide a sufficient GP on your product after taking into consideration anticipated conversion rates.

In your case, I would expect PPC to be beneficial for you, provided you are able to find cheap enough keyword phrases (1p - 30p bids as opposed to typical £1+ rates). There are a few techniques which can be employed in order to do achieve this, including bulk keyword scraping, provided you put in enough time and effort.

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[WebProfitsConsulting]

PPC can be a money pit if you're not careful.

This said if you get it right it can really deliver large volumes of targeted traffic to your website. When that traffic arrives, you need to ensure that you're website converts that traffic into either a)leads or b)buying customers.

If you've never opened a google adwords account you should be able to get a free £50 voucher, which is plenty to test the waters. You can normally find these tucked into most internet/PC related magazines at WH Smiths.

There are a number of different PPC platforms that you could try, but in the UK there's only one game in town.

I would suggest you need to:

1. Sort out your site. As it stand you won't convert the traffic
2. Grab a free £50 adwords voucher
3. Do some keyword research using the google external keyword tool (there are some better paid tools out there, but you don't want to go there, until you're up and running)
4. Work out what works, and eliminate what doesn't

Step 4 is the killer. If you can quickly find the sweet spot you'll be fine.

Good Luck!

 

[warrenrobertsim]

PPC can work for anyone in my experience you just have to watch out for a few things:

Keep in line with Googles policies or you are out of there. Once they close your account there's no getting it back without jumping through a hundred hoops.

I'd certainly learn the basics at least from someone who is already succeeding with it. In a different market so they have no problem sharing with you

 

[Digimarketeer]

Yes, PPC could work for you. You need to get into the mindset of potential customers and test the water with a few keywords and see how you fare. I wouldn't spend too much too quickly.

These guys are right, the site is a mess, and you could probably do a lot to improve your search rankings for not very much money. You might want to consider investing in SEO as well as PPC campaigns.

 

[salescvexample]

So basically...

Sort out my website, design, layout, call to action, faster loading times.

Test the water with PPC, I'm going to pay for someone to choose these for me.

Don't expect amazing results at first, analyse the data and see what works and what does not work.

Optimise the website withs some SEO to help it rank better

I think that is the advice im getting here.

Very greatful for all your comments and happy to see the same thing being mentioned! I have some work on my hands!

Thanks!

 

[WebProfitsConsulting]

A quick tip:

In terms of PPC be careful on the numbers that you get from the google external keyword tool. I would suggest you half the exact match monthly figure that you get, to obtain a more realistic figure of the sort of search traffic associated with the keyword.

Den

 

[Dave Thomas]

when you have sorted the site a bit corrected the bda splleing lol..pm me i can help...£75 voucher for you as a newbie + mayhave bit of spare to help build a small campaign.....

 

[Baz Watkins]

PPC is great at getting visitors to your website fast, but what then? You're website needs to convert the custom your ppc campaign generates, and if it doesn't then you are throwing money away.

One possible option is if you don't want to build a new website or adapt your current one make sure your ppc directs to a business phone number so any prospects can call you, in essence you become the coverting factor over your website.

If you decide to outsource the work (PPC and web design), there are many on here who can do it for you (hint hint, cough, cough), but if you prefer doing it yourself make sure you write the ads using the terminology and keywords your prospects will use in their search, also manage the delivery times so your ads get served at the times prospects are looking.

Hope that helps, if not there are loads of good peeps on here who can steer you in the right direction.....

 

[inbound interactive]

Maybe try a service such as unbounce

You can quickly set up a landing page for your lead generation to run with your PPC ads and it shouldn't take to long to get a grasp of what converts and what doesn't

 

[eventdomain]

You have got to sort your website out first! I must be brutal here, and point out that the CV writing area is saturated, and going niche has only cut down your chances of finding clients.

I used to run a CV writing biz (I still do a bit here and there), been doing this since 2002, former Recruitment specialist, Management Diploma, so you can imagine I know my stuff. Your website is competing with the likes of superior sites eg: http://www.thefullercv.com/ who use an army of freelance writers 'consultants' and charge about £120 per CV!

Their site is slick, has major partnerships with top jobsites and is well established. Not saying you should be at their level, but your website needs to stand out as the place to be for Sales CV's - and at the moment, it doesn't scream that to me.

Also, people are wary of automated templates, it gives an image of 'conveyor belt, production' and NOT hand-crafted CV's, using your skill/knowledge. Such a tool requires me, the user doing all the work and honestly, this can be done for free on a home-based PC for nothing, yet you are expecting people to pay up - so why should they pay you..... you need to show them why they should pay up, and honestly, a few pounds per CV doesn't say their getting anything of quality, you know what I mean...

What's your background for giving out CV advice?, Why should they come to you?

 

[webgeek]

Quick calculation on PPC (pure theory based on a lot of anecdotal evidence totally unrelated to CV's):

Typical case
-------------------

Cost per click = 50p
Conversion Rate = 2% (50 clicks to get 1 conversion)

50 clicks * 50p = 25 quid cost per conversion

Gross Profit (0.00) = Selling price (25 quid) - PPC cost (25 quid)
------------------------------

If you have no expense in creating the product and running the business, then you can break even.
If you can get traffic that converts for cheaper, then you might make a few pence.
If you can get traffic that converts more frequently, then you might make a few pence.
If you can upsell or cross-sell other services, then you might make a few pounds.

All depends on the keywords, buyer readiness, ability of ads to attract buyers not tire kickers, conversion optimization of the site, and so on.

 

[eventdomain]

(50 clicks to get 1 conversion)

thats awful but the clicks per conversion sounds about right to me.

50 clicks and noone buying is very bad, but it just shows how much misguided faith many have regarding this great PPC snowstorm has built up for itself, mostly preying on people's fragile emotions surrounding their businesses.

PPC can deliver traffic - but much is wasted as websites fail at conversion. But, I feel its a greater problem than that as adverts are poorly written too, so it fails at the traffic delivery point itself.

So working on £25 per 50 clicks, - so could end up spending hundreds of pounds for a couple of hundred off-target clicks that won't ever convert, that doesnt sound good value to me. I suppose many websites factor in a advertising waste budget? so they figure they'll spend £200 a month PPC, to get a few key sales perhaps....

better ways to get it done elsewhere in my opinion.

 

[salescvexample]

Hi guys thanks for all the feedback and I'm glad this post is still getting responses as all the info you guys are sharing is helpful.

Thefullercv is massive and partners with big brands. I set up my website with the intention of setting up a business profitable enough to leave my full time job and work for my self.

At the moment I'm working approx 40/45 hours per week and earning around £1650 after TAX.

So if I can work for my self and earn the same amount than that's a great start for me personally. Then I can learn from a small business to start a bigger one and invest more money.

I have worked in Sales for 10 years spending 4 of those years as a Sales Manager.

So I know how to write a quality Sales CV that will get results.

I'm now thinking that perhaps my website is too Niche? Maybe I should offer an all round service and open up my market?

Eventdomain - If you don't mind me asking what is your experience of offering a free CV review? That way I would capture a lead even when a PPC visitor doesnt convert on my website giving me more ammo to use? Do they convert, free CV reviews into paying customers?

I could then call the lead....

Thanks guys,

Scott

 

[fisicx]

The problem is not your skill writing a CV or offering a CV service. It's the website.

Building an effective website uses a completely different skill set. Have a look here: http://www.webstyleguide.com/

And here: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/10/13/call-to-action-buttons-examples-and-best-practices/

And here: http://www.copyblogger.com/ (it's primarily for wordpress but still a valuable resource)

Pay someone to build you a lead generating website and then you can use PPC effectively.

 

[eventdomain]

Eventdomain - If you don't mind me asking what is your experience of offering a free CV review?

I think you'll get some clients out of it, but also get many wanting free advice, and not turning into clients, so its a call only you can make.

I personally didnt offer free advice but I could pull in good money for my work, but thats just me. I feel your best bet is to add free content eg: CV examples, writing tips, interview tips/FAQ, job letter tips/examples etc - to give visitors a taster before they hire.

Sales is your expertise, then you should stick with this as a USP Eg: Sales CV Agency you can always expand later if you become good, recognised. My advice is as above - get your website re-designed by a professional, add useful content, get some clients and put testimonials on your website, this will help sell you.

On a side note: I feel the CV writing game will be 'blended in' as an extra, with the major job sites. Monster.co.uk already does this and the specialty sites WILL follow suit.

 

[salescvexample]

Ok sure thanks for the advice Eventdomain

I've made some major changes to my website using the advice I have been given here and on other forums.

Ive included more call-to-action buttons, used my home page to capture data offering a free CV review, made the site more slick and given it stronger branding.

Ive also highlighted that I write Sales CV's as a USP.

This is just one nights work and will continue to make improvements over the next few weeks.

Also, a bit of good news my domain name is now page one on Google for exact match and also for about 8/9 other key words so that's a start.

Thanks for all the advice everyone I really do appreciate it.

Thanks.