Google adwords - The Book-keepers Forum (UK)

nicd1981 · Veteran Member

Google adwords

Cheshire · Master Book-keeper

What words would you be looking to use?

abacus12345 · Guru

I've heard it can get expensive. I've also heard it can work. I've not got a website myself. Few postcards, word of mouth - can't complain.

RobH · Expert

I know people (including accountants) who swear by a good google ad campaign but I've heard even more who seem to have lost their shirt on it. There is clearly an art to getting it right and gave a lot of thought into using an agency to do a campaign for me but in the end I decided against it. my problem is I am not technically minded and the having to throw around £500 per month on clicks and not knowing what works and what doesn't scared me off a bit. Plus it seems that Google change things a lot so what works now may be rubbish next month. I'm sure someone like Vince and John would have a good understanding (Maybe Shaun?).

VinceH · Expert

I've no direct experience of Google AdWords, only a vague notion of how it works. (Which could be wrong).

However, the risk with Google changing things isn't - or shouldn't - be applicable here. I think you may be conflating AdWords with search algorithms. There is a correlation, but not what you might think.

Search algos determine the order in which organic search results are displayed - i.e. the normal results of searching for something. Changes to these algos can affect 'search engine optimisation' techniques and methodologies, whereby people design the text (and in some cases the underlying markup) of their [clients] pages in order to get them to appear as early in the results as possible for particular search phrases.

With AdWords, you are paying Google to include your advert when the search phrase includes the keywords you specify - and I think on other websites that carry Google adverts, if the page includes your keywords(?)

I believe you in effect 'bid' for your keywords to be picked up - so if you and someone else both have the same keywords, and they bid higher, their adverts will appear before yours. I believe you also set a budget/max spend - so in that same situation, once the other party's budget is spent, your adverts will then appear.

Leger · Master Book-keeper

Hi Rob

I very briefly dabbled in it a few years ago where I was working but they set a low budget which was swallowed up quickly.

Assuming it hasn't changed much, you can set a daily limit, max spend etc. As Vince says you pay per click and the more you pay the higher up the list you go. If it's local it shouldn't be too expensive eg accountancy wirral or accountancy liverpool. I have read that Google are doing away with the side bars on google search which is where they appear. Got to dash out now but I will find that link and post it. I also have an email with £75 towards adwords so I'll look that up as well.

Nic, Have you considered Facebook ads? I haven't delved into it too much but I'm planning to in the near future as I prepare myself for AE. These can be locally and demographically targeted so might be worth considering

nicd1981 · Veteran Member

Not sure on the words Cheshire as I'm all fingers and thumbs when it comes to advertising. I do have a Facebook page and am advertising on there which is starting to be quite successful. I'm meeting a graphic designer next week in regards to the website and wanted to have all my ideas ready to show him what I want, Adwords and SEO I really don't understand but would like to. When you search my website the word logo seems to be the search term. So you only find my website if you search the company name. Networking isn't for me , but I can do the advertising at home and arrange meetings one and one which I'm much more comfortable with .

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Be careful Nicola, people spend fortunes on websites / adwords / SEO / social media and get absolutely no return.

There is a reason that SEO pushers are banned from this site (They keep trying but we ban and delete them pretty quickly)

If you go with any pay per click solutions ensure that you cap your daily clicks.

Also make sure that you know all about the adwords click fraud.

MarkS · Expert

We use google adwords and target our town plus 2 larger towns locally which we also have registered offices in.

We are always on the top of google search for relevant searches locally. (just checked accountant and the relevant town the now and we are top of the page).

Costs us anything between £50 - £80 per month and we get up to 5 clicks a day.

One of our most popular ways of getting new business is people finding us on "google" which will be a mixture of google ads and organic searches.

We have someone externally who constantly monitors it for us as well as doing the social media side of things, email marketing, google analytics etc.

VinceH · Expert

I've just repeated your searches.

For one of those three locations (I believe your main office) your Google advert is indeed the first. It's *second* on one of the other two, and I can't see it at all for the third. That order seems to have a reverse correlation with the size of the respective location (and therefore - unsurprisingly - the amount of competition).

I suspect, therefore, if you were in a much larger location, your monthly Adwords expenditure would need to be higher to get the same results. (Consider that the OP is in Liverpool).

Since I had the searches open anyway, I had a glance down the actual (i.e. organic) search results.

Here, you are in third place for the first location (with a Yell.com result) and fourth for your actual website. You don't appear until the third page (fourth result on that page) for the second location, and the same (except sixth result on the page) for the third location.

Again, reverse correlation with location size: More competition, more results to sort yours into.

Now for the really fun bit:

Note: This applies to the organic results only.

While for me those are the results, depending on how you (and your external person) check this, you might find you are top of the page in all three cases, as a result of a change Google made several years ago. (Unless they've since changed it yet again.)

At that point Google decided to 'weight' people's searches by their previous searches for the same information, and whether or not they clicked on any links.

That means if you searched for yourself, and clicked through to your site, your site would work its way higher in your own results. (I think the logic was that if people repeatedly searching for the same information, and click through to the same sites each time, then on subsequent searches for the same or similar information, they are probably looking for the same sites as before. Or something like that.)

That only works if you remain logged in to Google when searching, and/or allow their cookies to remain on your system - one or the other or both.

I very rarely log in, and when I do, I log out as soon as I've finished doing whatever I've logged in for, and Google's cookies don't survive on my system beyond a browser session - so Google's methods can't so easily be applied to me. Doubly so when you consider that I don't very often use Google for search anyway. I tend to use duckduckgo.com

(Speaking of which - a quick check with duckduckgo; same order of locations: You're in fourth place for the first location, nineteenth on the first page for the second, and ninth on the third page for the third location.)

abacus12345 · Guru

Hi. So are we saying that, depending upon your search engine, being logged in / out, can alter the results you're given? A few, yet growing number using a VPN would get entirely different results. I regularly get USA results, youtube adverts for the US too. This is with private internet access (paid)- selecting London as base. Fair enough I get bounced all around the globe first lol. As mentioned above, if you live in a small town I can see the value, yet if you're in the city you're against the big boys.

Leger · Master Book-keeper

I can't find the link I read about adwords not appearing on the side now but theres a few sites mentioning it. The results coming back are seo firms so I'd rather not link.

Sorry the £75 adwords vouchers was a year ago and the link doesn't work now cry

Hi Vince. I'd forgotten about skewed rankings based on previous searches, so good point.

How god is duckduckgo? I always forget to use it but I'm unsure has to how they collate their results. If results are similar to those of Google (when not logged in) I'm guessing that the algorithms are similar?

VinceH · Expert

"So are we saying that, depending upon your search engine, being logged in / out, can alter the results you're given?"

In some cases yes. Google is one, based on the change I mentioned. As for others, I don't know specifically, but I'd guess the bigger names, who have log-ins, probably do.

"A few, yet growing number using a VPN would get entirely different results. I regularly get USA results, youtube adverts for the US too. This is with private internet access (paid)- selecting London as base. Fair enough I get bounced all around the globe first lol."

Exactly.

"As mentioned above, if you live in a small town I can see the value, yet if you're in the city you're against the big boys."

The flip side of that is (depending on your business, and how wide you want to cast the net) the smaller the location, the fewer competing in the search rankings, so the easier it should be to get a high organic search ranking (subject to search/profiling algorithms) without resorting to Adwords.

Swings. Roundabouts.

VinceH · Expert

"How god is duckduckgo?"

Well, I don't worship it! :p

"I always forget to use it"

I have it set as the default search engine for Firefox, so if I'm not going straight to a website and just type a search term into the address bar, it's duckduckgo that gets used for the search. Thereafter, if I modify the search term, I'm doing so in duckduckgo's search box.

"but I'm unsure has to how they collate their results. If results are similar to those of Google (when not logged in) I'm guessing that the algorithms are similar?"

I believe its data is taken from some different sources (including search engines such as Bing and sites like Wolfram Alpha) as well as their own web crawler. What they do then internally in order to decide how the results are ordered... I have no idea.

-- Edited by VinceH on Friday 25th of March 2016 04:29:09 PM

kjmcculloch83 · Expert

Hi Nic,

While Google AdWords and Facebook Ads can be fantastic in getting people to visit your site, the bigger concern is what you have them do when they're there. If you have a static website with a hope that visitors will call or send an email then this may not be the right way to go.

If you have an active sales funnel on your website then ads are great. About 3% of your market are ready to buy today. That's the same 3% that every other bookkeeper and accountant are chasing. What a sales funnel does is allow you to capture the other 97% and educate them through to buying. It's a really powerful tool used by many large businesses, but now it's easy for small businesses like us to use too.

You need a way to harvest the email addresses or contact details of your visitors. Rob does this well with his free book, I offer a free pdf download. By offering something of value in return for an email address which you send relevant and interesting content to, over time you become known, liked and trusted by your prospect. When they become part of the 3% actively looking they then buy from you.

Paying for adwords without such a system is, in my experience, a waste of money. You may get clicks, but you want sales.

Hope this helps.

Kris

Leger · Master Book-keeper

VinceH wrote:
"How god is duckduckgo?"
Well, I don't worship it! :p

biggrin I don't make may typo's but when I do.....

VinceH · Expert

"I don't make may typo's but when I do....."

You make them in March? :p

-- Edited by VinceH on Saturday 26th of March 2016 10:44:14 AM

Leger · Master Book-keeper

Sod it, I'm going back to bed smile

David Ballantyne · Senior Member

Hi Nic,

I have never used Adwords so cannot comment personally on its effectiveness. However, I have taken an interest in internet marketing in general over the last few years and would like to offer the following comments.

I would concur with Kris (kjmcculloch83) and Mark S (Stewart Accounting Services) that it is effective. Just put a search into Google for the word "accountant" or "accountant in yourtown" and many adverts will be displayed. You will find that the same firms are advertising month after month. They would not do this if it were not effective.

I have the impression that you are AAT qualified. I seem to remember reading posts by you on the AAT forum and your blog. One of the regular posters on the MIP forum is Burg. I believe he is currently running a pricing survey. He uses Adwords as a core part of his marketing and has found it successful. It may be worth contacting him for some advice.

In respect of learning how to use Adwords, there is no getting away from the fact that it is complicated. However, I think that it is one of those skills, that once mastered, will prove valuable.

I would like to suggest the following links:

Google's "How Adwords Works"

Wordstream's "How to use Google Adwords"

KISSMetrics' "How to create a profitable Google Adwords campaign

On the matter of blogging as a marketing tool, I would recommend the Quicksprout blog.

On both blogging and Adwords for marketing I would recommend the Software Promotions blog. If I were looking to use Adwords for marketing, and I had the money, these are the guys I would hire.

I would also suggest that you take a look at Kris's joint venture Bookkeepers Alliance. I believe that you may find some useful advice on marketing and other practice matters.

Hope that helps,

David.

Leger · Master Book-keeper

£75 credit when you spend £25 on Google Adwords. Just seen it on here when posting a new thread

http://www.google.co.uk/adwords/?channel=gdn-ef&sourceid=awo&subid=gb-en-gdn-aw-1f_95895397255@^www.book-keepers.org.uk$1006864&gclid=CK-u-Pvm48sCFVIaGwodq_ULkA

christineacosta · Newbie

Hi! I am for Google Adwords. This is a powerful tool for advertising campaigns. With the skillful use of this service, you can achieve high results. It can drive well qualified traffic if you do it good. But it does not good for everyone. Don't use Google Adwords just because all around use the advantages of GA. The main thing in this matter is to analyze the keywords correctly.

VinceH · Expert

Do you do any different flavours of sandwich filling?

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

there's

spam and lettuce
Lettuce and spam
Spam, Spam and lettuce
or Spam, Spam, Spam and Spam.

wink

Leger · Master Book-keeper

LOL you two

Actually in a way she (he?) has done me a favour. I'm gearing up to do a campaign towards the end of August ready for a move to Doncaster in October(ish) so the Google Ads thingy was a reminder (which I might take advantage of with the £75 voucher only) but also about Facebook ads, which are probably more effective. So it was a timely reminder.

I've been a tad lazy this year and having lost two of my biggest clients (one outgrew me, the other expectantly closed down two weeks ago) I need to replace that income and also push forward, because although these two were below the 15% margin singularly, It's still roughly 20% in total.

Shamus · Forum Moderator & Expert

Ouch,

Always bitter sweet when companies that we care about outgrow us as on the one hand we want them to do well but on the other the time that we invest in them makes us feel a bit responsible for them and it's like children flying the nest when they move on.

good luck with the hunt John.

Leger · Master Book-keeper

Thanks Shaun

It gives me a chance to get caught up on office work and having a clear out at home, because if we take everything my wife has collected over the years, we're going to need a 40 tonne artic!!! (and I'm only half joking)

Cheshire · Master Book-keeper

Oh boy - two at once! I got rid of a biggie about 18 months ago and was a wee bit worried about replacing it, dut ended up doing so with two newbies within a couple of weeks. Unfortunately they were both as big as the original as both had major problems when I took them on so the issue then was a total lack of free time which went on for months. Why I am saying this - well just to say that you never know what is round the corner in this job so take that chance to de-clutter, but make sure it doesnt involve Mrs R!! lol. Dont forget to ask those clients for some recommendations and introductions to their pals etc. Are you getting very close to a move then John?

Leger · Master Book-keeper

2-3 months on the outside Joanne. We will be renting and at the moment I'm swinging towards a 3 bedroom so I can use one room as an office. I would like an external office but cheapest so far is about £250-£300 which is not bad but unaffordable until I get more work in.

It is very tempting to include Mrs R in the declutter, believe you me. I'm expecting a few tears and tantrums when we start decluttering but we have collected some serious junk in the 12 years we've been here.