Pay Per Click

[joe]

Ha Ha, glad to see you've committed to memory my montra, “Make more samples”. Your forgiven even though your a vacuum head

Ron Mitchell my new sidekick, wants to concentrate on CNC offerings. In a short six months, he much better with it than I am. And he enjoys tedious technical denking around. I'm looking for a good advertising medium to push this side of the business and PPC is it for now. I'm going to give it a try since I can control the costs and direction. I'm finished with broadcast advertising like yellow pages. Here's an example of my full page yellow pages ad. Although it works very well, it's way too expensive for the financial return.


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For the past two years we've lived off our website and history. Ron is in the process of optimizing our website. As you know, it's very important but even more so with PPC.

I've never thought of this forum as being any financial benefit. For me it's been very a helpful resource area and lots of fun seeing others work. I only wish we had more postings on step by step.
I could do more but feel as though others will think I'm taking over or blowing my own horn.

[mims]

Joe, I know what PPC is. I was responding to Dana's message. The point of my message was to say that I, and countless others, use adblocking that shows me zero PPC ads or any other types of ads. I never see any Googel AdSense ads or anything from any company ever, unless I allow a website to show ads. But I will turn ads on for some interesting websites, so I can see what products might be out there.

[dakers]

Joe, here is what Bob emailed me about optimization

the only way you can really learn search engine optimization is to dive into the information that is out there. some of it costs money and some of it is free. since the search engines change their algorithms regularly, you have to continue to study and make changes as needed. i think many think you put keywords in the meta tags and on the site and bingo - you rise to the top. wish it was that easy.

i'm falling a bit behind on my studying lately as well as i've been getting pretty busy and am doing a lot of work around the house in the evenings. i just heard google made some new changes but i haven't had a chance to see what they are yet.

[dakers]

Joe, bob further tells me.
when i get some time i'll send you some links to seo sites you might find useful. be aware though - a little knowledge in this area can be more dangerous than none at all as many people try to make quick changes - do it wrong - and get their sites banned.

[bob_s]

Gary;
"I have NEVER been able to enter one of my keywords or groups of keywords and have my website shown on the 1st 10 pages, NEVER, from my, or anyone else' computer. " It is working - If you put in florida keys, cabinets, stairs - you are about 1/2 way down on the first page. The challenge is to figure out why, and then get other search word combo's to work as well. Sometimes looking at the Page Source will give you the answer - but not often. Search engine analytics is a major area of confusion. By keeping their algorithms secret Google and others make it difficult without paying. But "search engine optimization" or SEO will result in a google page with a few good articles. Will it bring $ to a business - that is another very different question.
Bob

[Gary Campbell]

Bob...
You are correct, even I can find that one! What I said and you quoted is correct. When using 3 or more of my keywords, most always returned our site on 1st 2 pages. What I didnt say was that I rewrote most of the pages of my website using those keywords that received the most clicks. (at the advice of a friend) Now I get the same number hits per month +/- 5% to our website and pay less.

When we reenter this ad venue, and I am sure that we will, it will be done with the aid of professionals, as I am sure that what I have done so far has returned unaccaptable results.
Gary

[joe]

Eric,

I'm sorry for not understanding what you were talking about. I know almost nothing about all PPC which is the reason for my post.

I believe Gary is correct about having a professional to assist.

Gary, I do believe my YP sales person stated the end result and charges came from the telephone connection. During the discussion both Ron and I recall her stating this. It will be interesting to find ou more.

[GlenP]

Hey guys, we have done pay per click and did get alot of hits from it. We did have to keep our price per click in the $0.65 range to get on the top pages. I had a cap on it of around $65 per month. We had sales from it from but noticed the more clicks we got the more google wanted us to up our minimum per click. They emailed us and said more sites are using our keywords so to stay in the top pages we should up our CPC. I said no and turned it off. It did bring in some sales from other provinces but also brought alot more emails to respond to that went no where. My opinion is too have a site professional get your keywords placed in the right places and then approach other websites to share links. I just typed in "routered signs" and our site came up in the first page. Sharing links is free and we find it does bring in traffic if you are on the right sites. A friend of mine you makes beautiful signs made a freebie for his local sport and canoe shop, they get alot of cottagers and tourists and they all want one of those pretty signs. Check his site out...www.trmacsigns.com
Good Luck and keep us posted Joe.

[joe]

Posted on Friday, June 19, 2009 - 7:28 am:

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Thanks fellows,

The PPC haze is beginning to lift.

There she is, on the Horizon, PC land. "Heads Up Maties, lower the mast, trim those sails, we'll be dropping anchor soon." There'll be shore leave for some of you swine.
Aarg!

Here's my suspecions and findings: Website optimization (SEO) should be part of good ad program. We've found it isn't too difficult but lots steps and it takes time. It's folly, trying to outsmalt Google. You need to be honest and out front with your product listings. They continually check for scams. And they'll lower your ad positition and once that happens it's hard to climb bakc up.

I received a very helpful call, last night, from Dave S. concerning PPC. He correctly pointed out the SEO isn't directly related to PPC. I believe he's correct. That shot my eyebrows up to the top of my head. It makes sence. With PPC you are paying for the position.

Gary, Let me know what you think abut this. My contact is the YP rep. She is telling us, when they configure the package, there is a tracking number which results in a phone call from the prospective client. That generates a click. This is a step beyond a client viewing the website. This may be new or possibly only available through YP.

Some of my mail about PPC is very positive, others aren't as good. It seems this is a little tricky to get it right. To quote Ross Pero, "I'm All Ears".

I regularly receive calls and mail from SBers who almost never post. They are content on viewing only. Who knows how much useful information is transfered and put to good use, due to this forum. I know I learn lots.

Joe
www.normansignco.com

[dakers]

Just some stories.
One of our internet sales companies was selling recycled plastic benches, picnic tables, lumber.
Bob our guy who does the SEO got us selling about $20,000. the first year without ppc. I pulled the site after a few years because i have a fear of not getting paid from people we did not know. Some did not pay and some were very too slow. I just started back selling the benches and tables this year but only to the government. They have never defaulted but pay slower.
A friend of mine has a internet sales site for school products. He has 7,000 products. He pays about $5,000. per month for ppc and seo. he said he goes into the red on ppc about 8 to 9 months a year but the really good months make up for it.

Right now our internet site is making enough money to pay for one sales person, the seo he does, and about $30,000 profit per year. The cash flow becomes the issue, shipping issues we had to learn, having the right forms forms for customer to fill out, deadlines, proofs, etc.
The biggest surprise is that most of the profit comes from selling design time rather than the product itsef. We sell that at $90.00 per hour and it is the most lucrative part for us. Right now with the seo and the repeat business and referrals i would not go to ppc. We have publications we can advertise in and go to shows but the shows never brought us any sales, The publications were expensive. The only thing stopping us from doing alot of marketing is we do not have an extra $100,000. to play with and see what happens over a year. Our competitors do and they sell more than us.

one company locally ( P. Graham Dunn ) who made routed and laser plaques has had phenonimal growth with retail.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRjrXJ2jRlU

My son wants to do an ebay sign company.

Locally we see alot of these sandstone residential signs that are blasted or carved. That has been something i think about sometimes because the market is not just businesses.

Wholesale sales is something we tried and got out of. We just could not handle the volume, deadlines and cash flow. A friend of mine started a wholesale company doing vacuuformed sign faces in the 1970s in his storage bldg in his back yard. He now has a huge operation selling nationally. It started to really grow when he got sign product distributors like N. Glantz and son, Pioneer, Tubleite to sell his products.