I spoke with a friend of a friend last night, who runs a small computer business in CT, fixing computers, installing networks, removing spyware, etc. He's trying to garner new business; specifically in the business field, as that tends to be a bit more recurring and pay better, I'm assuming. He'd done some AdWords advertising, and has a webpage that he did several years ago, but hadn't been happy with the results. For those not familar, AdWords runs ads on Google, and the network of sites that Google where syndicates its results.
There are two main issues that he'll need to work through.
First, his website is out of date. He mentiond it was set up when he was focused on Linux work, several years ago. It has more of a techy feel to it. He probably needs two landing pages. One for consumer work, with a warm, friendly feel, as people will need that reassurance for problems they're likely frustrated with, to the point of having someone come into their home. The second, for the commercial work. It's the type of work that a good graphical artist / web designer can help pull together, and help welcome people in to the site. There's also an opportunity to do the usual building relationships with people who may not be ready to buy now.
The second main issue is the Adwords campaign. A couple key mistakes...selecting two geographical areas, CT and NY, NY. Even if you reach over the CT border, I'm sure that the vast majority of clicks he got came from parts of New York City that would have been very difficult to reach. Same thing with another campaign that set a radius of 75 miles from Norwich, CT. I'd have a very narrow focus and gradually expand. Another issue was a max cost per click of $5.00... About 100 clicks burned through $300. Seeing this, my hypothesis was that many of the high cost clicks were burned through very rapidly, and burnt out the campaign.
On the bright side, a narrowly targeted campaign, with reasonable cost per click targets, and friendly landing pages should have much better results.
4 Comments:
Have him try SuperPages.com. He can target more closely to his area and since it's a yp directory, the clicks tend to be higher quality overall as compared to search engines.
Both Overture (Yahoo) and Google now have better local targeting. He should doublecheck his settings and possibly contact them to make sure that he is optimized for local.
As for free traffic, have him pick up a copy of Search Engine Optimization for Dummies. Easy to read and understand and full of actionable tips in just the first chapter alone.
Glenn Reid, CEO of Five Across, told me that keeping his blog has done far better than the Google Ads campaign they ran to drive traffic to his company's site. Now, that campaign may have been poorly run, but that's still quite a testimonial on behalf of business blogging.
For online marketing I suggest posting articles on subjects people are looking for. Network with others for cross linking to boost the page rank. When Googling I go for information from experts and avoid the ads. Anyone can buy an add, it is someone who knows their business who can write an informative and useful article. Think of it as publishing your in-house knowledge base. You may not want to give it all away, just enough to show your value.
But online is not going to get one in front of business owners or managers. They do not have a lot of time to surf around. Old fashioned street marketing is going to be needed. A good business name pm the side of your car, being able to say what you can do for your customers in under a minute, and shaking hands at appropriate functions. Think trade shows, your customer's trade shows and not your industry. Why buy a table and try to sell to your competition? Walk into the Bagel Bakers Association show (usually admission is free, or cheaper than a table) and chat people up. They will be impressed that you are showing an interest in their business and open to hear how you can help them.
Mr. Greene:
Do you have any information about the Bagel Bakers Association? I'm trying to learn about the bagel baking industry in Newark, NJ between 1905-1927 when my great grandfather would have been active.
This may sound trivial but any information would help greatly in my family history research.
EF
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