google adwords just too expensive

It can be expensive depending on what keywords you are targeting. However, it's worthwhile asking yourslef some questions... Am I targeting keywords which are specific enough? If you're not specific enough, you'll get visitors but not sales (and hence Google will charge you and your return on invesement will be lower) Are there any lower-priced keywords I can target which will get me some lower-cost results? What is my return on investment? how much money am I making per pound spent? What does it need to be? What is your clickthrough rate Bev? What percentage of those people are buying? You may also want to look at ways to improve your conversion rate from visitors to sales (this normally involves changing your site in some way.) If people are coming to your site in droves but nobody is buying, then the problem is probably at your site - not with your advertising. Something you'll have to work out from the figures... As you can see, the issues are many depending on your current statistics both at your website and in the Adwords results page - good luck! Aaron Pollock Making your website your best team member http://www.aarpol.co.uk/ Join the Online Business Success club http://www.ecademy.com/module.php?mod=club&c=692&xref=32858
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Aaron Pollock
BoSPEAK">href="http://www.bospeak.com">BoSPEAK Ltd

Hi Bev The problem with adwords is that you pay per click for visitors whether they buy or not. No doubt you had budgeted to spend X number of £pounds per month on adwords, increasing as the sales grew, this is the usual policy and quite sensible. However, the cost per sale in many industries means that this is not cost effective. Another method is to position your site on the front page of google, yahoo, etc, but in the main listings not through adwords. This can be done for a fixed fee over 12 months and can reduce your costs massively. Securicor have just switched to this system from adwords and seen their cost per sale fall by a factor of more than 6. For more info, why not drop us an email on James@a4internet.com Regards James Hirst www.a4internet.com 0845 108 0411 James@a4internet.com

Dear Bev I am not a web designer as the previous listings. What I would do is firstly, have a look at all the listings put up on this forum in response to DrDeath seeking advice on how to market bouncy castles - some good points which would apply to selling any product. I would also go back to first principles and sit down and think of all the places you could market selling bears both off line and on line. What sort of person is going to buy your bear ( predominantly women 18 - 35 or high proportion of young men, 18 - 35 making an impetuous purchase - you need to know through your market research for your business and target your marketing accordingly ) From this you should be able work out what sort of online sites/ high street shops e.g. Clintons cards? they visit. To help you, if you have a group of friends or even a group of strangers I would have a brainstorming session about where to promote your service again online and offline ( type of focus group ). They could also crit your site and what you are offering.Have you got any of your bears on display in shops - even just for promotional purposes. An area I might investigate is the corporate incentive market - promotional gifts for companies/ reward schemes for staff. Anyway just a few thoughts. If you have not taken advice I would arrange to see a business adviser at your local enterprise agency and/ or Business Link. As it will most likely be free, nothing to lose in seeking a further opinion. I hope something I have said helps. Regards Mellin

Hi Bev, As you have discovered Google Adwords, although quite economical, for start ups can be quite an expense. Especially as you are still building your company awareness. You have been given good feedback from the other posters of this forum in terms of looking for other more targeted keywords (which Google does have a suggestion area on the keyword you enter) you may find a more direct keyword that brings in less visitors but more sales per visitor. Have you thought about giving away a bear in a competition - people flock to competitions and competitions sites and is a great way to give you brand awareness. For instance on one of my sites recently I gave away a DVD film. I promoted this within freebie and competition sites and in less than three weeks it has generated more than 600 respondents. The competition can be done from your site via a form the visitor has to fill in and to qualify they have to agree to your terms and conditions, which contacting them further by email with offers and news could be one stipulation, and then add the respondent on to your newsletter. To comply with SPAM regulations it would also probably be safer for a double opt in for the newsletter which can be done signing up for a low cost newsletter service like http://www.ymlp.com . Not only then have they had to visit your site to enter the competition and you now have their email address to contact them with news and offers but after they have completed the form you can direct the user back to your product pages to again increase awareness of your products. This is an extremely economical way of increasing your brand awareness and the only cost is the cost of the prize, low cost of the newsletter and your time. I have helped others with this type of brand awareness through a number of our sites (including freebie and competition sites) and if you would like further details please do not hesitate to contact me at contact@c2webdesign.co.uk Best of luck with everything Kind regards, Dean C2 Web Design http://www.c2webdesign.co.uk contact@c2webdesign.co.uk

Hi Bev, My wife used to run a Teddy Bear shop. We mainly dealt in Steiff, Hermanns and Deans so the target audience is perhaps slightly different (bear prices are around £150+) however then website has been closed for over a year but is still getting around 40 unique visitors a day and ranking highly on some search engines and is listed on a lot of TeddyBear related portals and "hobby" websites. The domain name is sitting there doing nothing at the moment, so if you would perhaps like to come to some sort of temporary arrangement were I can direct all the traffic to you let me know.
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Richard Osborne
Quick Formations Limited
A simple online company formation and company credit checking service...
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i have just read on google's web site that they are offering a service called google adsense... basically, you have some of their ads on your own website and when people click on them you get some money! they have got some testimonials from some people, and one of them actually reinvest the extra revenue generated into the pay per click campaign and it seems to work well for him!! maybe a strategy you should look into?!

I have Google Adsense on certain pages of my website and I think they're great...[]. I've had them on the site for about a month or two now and have made about $200 from them so far. I hear a lot of people saying that they don't want competitors on their own websites advertising - if anything it ads to the user experience in my opinion - like FREEDOM of CHOICE. Hey, if they ain't gonna buy from me, then I may as well get a few pennies for them being at my site and using my bandwith...[(Only kidding). Anyway, I think Adsense is pretty good. Regards, Mark.
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You could try www.espotting.com instead which are much cheaper. Also why not optimise your website for the search engines? Its not difficult just time consuming, and takes a while to start working, a few months probably. Its well worth it though, as this is completely free and your position on the search engines just keeps improving over time. Help on this subject is here: http://www.ecademy.com/module.php?mod=club&op=forum&c=46&t=45663&m=45663 Regards Amanda
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Regards

Amanda


Truly Ace Graphic Design Blog


Logo Design I Web Design I Print Design

If you want to know more about AdSense check out www.FactsAboutAdSense.com which is a site I run. Hope it helps.
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I dont want to come across rude or overly critical, but I think your website is not up to scratch. The way it looks now does not instill confidence in me that your business is a quality one. As you are obviously aware, the internet is now an integral component to any company's marketing/sales strategy. So before you go splashing your money on adwords/adsense/espotting and the likes, think wisely about spending some good money on your website. Best of luck