Test the water by myself or pay someone to do it?

[DIDAMEDIA]

I have been playing around with Google Adwords the whole afternoon and was struggling with wording for keywords. I am just wondering how everyone else does it. Do you try Adwords by yourself before you hand it over to a SEO expert or you go straight to SEO services including the adword.

 

[natashacs]

I do it myself and have changed my ads many times as I've learned mroe. I used google keywords tool, and I have about 6 different campaigns. Try it yourself for at least a few months before paying someone else to do it.

 

[phillipsinternet]

If you're just dabbling then by all means play around and see what happens. The Google Keyword Research Tool is probably the best indicator of good keywords as it tells you traffic and cpc levels as well as suggesting synonyms based on your phrases.

However if you're going to be spending 1k - 1.5k a month initially (which has always worked for my clients) you'll want a professional looking after the account so it can be optimised. An adwords manager will usually charge up to around 22% of your adwords budget to manage it (although, shameless plug - we're a bit cheaper).

If you want to keep at it yourself here's a bit of advice:

Common practice nowadays for keyword research is to come up with your own list of generic keywords and a seed list. A seed list is a list of phrases you think potential customers will be searching for.

The seed list will likely be more accurate, whereas the generic list will initially cost you money, but if you combine it with google analytics you can learn quickly which phrases result in conversions.

E.g. you may choose the keyword 'ecommerce' if you are a web developer and by checking your analytics account you may find that the following phrases convert:

magento developer
magento development

whereas the following are never going to, and can therefore be excluded from your campaign and cost you less:

magento tutorials
magento hosting
magento sucks (just kidding, it's great )

I hope that gives you some pointers. Feel free to get in touch if you have any questions, there's a lot more that can be done regarding match types etc.

 

[SEO Positive]

What sort of budget are you working with?

If you have a large budget, and are looking for excellent conversions from the outset then paying for a PPC Expert will be your best bet. However if your just looking to dabble a little bit of money in to it to start with, then you should do it yourself.

You can usually find a PPC expert from 15% - 25% as a management fee.

But remember, just because they cost more, it does not mean that they are better.

 

[david64]

This guy is good at PPC by the admission of a number of members here:

http://www.ppc-services-uk.co.uk/ppc-services.html

 

[DIDAMEDIA]

How much should I spend as my daily budget to start with?

 

[Junglepocket]

Hello,

Have you considered that maybe PPC is not the best way forward? Why not focus on organic search results instead. This relies on SEO, but if done correctly and you hit top of Google for your keywords will result in a flow of free traffic.

Pay per click advertising is like steroids - once you stop, you lose all the effects. With SEO, your site can remain high in the search engines with regular link building and fresh content.

If I had £1000 to spend on getting traffic to my site, I would spend it ALL on content for my site. £1000 would buy you about 150 well written, keyword optimised articles to be used on your site. This would increase the number of pages on your site from 16 to 166 and also increase exposure of your site in the search engines.

You are more likely to hit a dartboard, if you have 100 darts rather than just 1.

Websites themselves do not get ranked. Webpages do. The more optimised pages you have the better.

A 16 page site is very small. Most small business owners have a 5 page site, so you're doing a little better though.

Any questions, then let me know.

Oh by the way, the title tag on your site is way too long.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

Pay per click advertising is like steroids - once you stop, you lose all the effects.

The "effects" of PPC are the profits you make.

You keep those profits them when you stop advertising. Google doesn't come round to your house and take your money away.

And, if you choose, you can use those profits to pay for things like SEO.

As for the original question, there's nothing wrong with trying adwords yourself if you're starting with a small budget.

I'd recommend you read "Adwords for Dummies" beforehand. It's a bit out of date (a new version will come out in a few months time), but you'll do better if you've read it than if you haven't.

The one downside of doing adwords yourself is that you could get poor results and you won't know why.

i.e. is it a poor match for your business? Or is it potentially very profitable, but you didn't do it right?

Hope this helps,

Steve

 

Well if your a new business then I would recommend getting someone like Steve Gibson to do you PPC.

SEO is maybe a longer Strategy that you could undertake simultaneously if funds allow.

Earl