[Neil Grainger]

Hi All

Do Google  Adwords work for us in this Industry?

and how do they work.

Cheers

Neil

[heritagecleaning]

Adwords will work if people are using google to search for carpet cleaners - simple as that.
Now, I can't speak for everyone, but if I was looking for a cleaner then google would not be my first port of call. I would pick up the yellow pages, or if I was online I would go to yell.com

The best place to go for an overview of adwords is https://adwords.google.co.uk/select/Login?sourceid=AWO&subid=UK-ET-ADS&hl=en_GB

Hope this helps

Owen

[the red carpet]

works well for getting enquiries, only problem is they are from all over the place and its not unusual to drive 20-30 miles to do a quote.

I find i convert a lot more quotes i get from the net though than from other sources like leaflets.

[the red carpet]

whilst i agree more people may turn to the yellow pages looking for a cleaner, the beauty of addwords is you only pay if people actually look at your site and they are going to be people in your area who actually need a cleaner so you stand a good chance of getting the work in my opinion.

with y/p you are paying wether anybody looks or not i get a better response from addwords than yp and my adwords is 50% cheaper

I spend

£120 a month addwords
£240 a month y/p

[stevegunn]

Adwords works well in certain areas like everything else.Firstly you need to see if there are many people running them in your area because if there is you would need to set yourself a budget and stick to it or simply not bother.Spend the money getting your site further up the google search like Red quite a good success rate converting web enquires 

[heritagecleaning]

Good point red carpet - I stand partially corrected.

[woodman]

Heritage,

I have asked that very question to potential new clients when visiting to quote.

With out fail more and more would rather go through the net than YP.

I truly believe that with a few exceptions, YP has had its day as far as our kind of business is concerned and within 5 years it will be struggling miserably against the internet for business, the pressure they put on to go with yell.com proves this (to me at least)

Unless they massively reduce their advertising costs the big yellow book is going to get smaller and smaller.

PPC will become more competative as new technology comes on stream and as already said you are not paying vast sums up front and of course can cut it off at any time if its not working for you, unlike YP which simply doesn't work for most carpet cleaners that I know, yet for some reason they almost feel duty bound to lump more cash in to it year after year.

[Michel Roberts]

I have just come to the end of my first week trying ad words

I tried it mainly after reading the posts on this board by "the red carpet" in November of last year

See "Higher search engine rankings" started by Gleamservices on 07/11/06

So far I have had absolutly no response, impressions or click throughs at all

I am quite sure this is because I am somehow not doing it right, but finding out what I am doing wrong seems to involve spending hours going through google s help pages

I wanted the first line of my ad to say "Carpet fitter west London" but google said the word "Fitter" was nt allowed! I resubmitted using Carpet layer instead of Carpet fitter and that was accepted.

My point being that it seems you have to get it exactly right for it to work, and that is easier said than done.

As woodman has said people are using the net more and more. After all it's easier to do your personal stuff at work on the net without anyone noticing.

Regards Michel

[the red carpet]

i didnt have those problems, mayby i was lucky

how you can get no clicks amazes me i get a few per day when im on there my adds arnt even showing at the moment as i owe them money coz iv had so many clicks.

if you wana give me your password and log in details i will set it up for you and you will get clicks

theredcarpet@hotmail.co.uk

[*paul_moss]

Red
What converson rate do you get from your clicks

[the red carpet]

paul i would struggle to work it out for a few reasons

firstly i am rarely on there for more than a couple of weeks at a time due to cashflow problems
secondly i only turn it on when im slow and turn it of again when im busy
also when i started i had prices on the site
and now i go out and quote
coupled with the fact iv recently upped my prices, it all affects my conversion rate as they used to ring to book now they ring for a quote

what i do know is i get regular work and there good jobs for a small amount a month
i have a job on friday from it with a indoor swimming pool bigger than my flat £270 for lounge and landing and she has signed up for maintenance and wants another 954 square foot room done in 3 months time, that to me is good quality work

i get a couple of jobs a week from it and spend £120 a month

[*paul_moss]

Red
Just sent you an email.
Have a quick look for me to see why i cant get no clicks.

Paul

[the red carpet]

Paul just took a look for you and your being to tight
dont know if it on purpose or just because you didnt know how to set it up properly but the way it works is like a auction you bid for clicks, your bids are to low some as little as 4p that is why you are not being found.

Also you have not been specific about the areas you want to be found in you have keywords such as carpet cleaning or leather cleaning you need to put a town at the end of those words.

like i would use
carpet cleaning essex
carpet cleaning hertfordshire
carpet cleaning loughton etc, that way you are only bidding against your local companys as it is your bidding against the whole of the uk and with such low bids you have to much competition.

some of your keywords are even inactive as your bid is below the minimum
if you want i will set it up for you tonight but you will need to increase your budget i would say about £120 a month
its worth a months trial to see how it goes i reckon you will be at the top on google and getting enquiries by the next day myself
if you want me to do it just let me know how much you are willing to spend and give me a list of the areas you want work in

[*paul_moss]

Thanks Red I will do that later. I had it set on automatic so google did the costings.

[Michel Roberts]

Thanks Red thats really very Kind of you

I,m sure that you could suss it out more in five mins than I could in five days!

e-mail coming

Regards Michel

[bennymon]

hi red im also really struggling with ad words any chance we could have a chat about it  abmcleaning@fsmail.net  cheers del 

[Neil Grainger]

Gents and Ladies,

I have just set up my Google adwords account and have set a limit of £100 a month.

Adwords I have used are Carpet Cleaning followed by the Camberley Fleet Farnborough and other local towns in my area.

When I search I do not appear on the page everytime, can someone please explain why. Is it because my monthly limit is to low and others pay more a month.

I have only gone for the basic package is this the right thing to do.

Please Help

Cheers

Neil

[*paul_moss]

Neil
 have done the same as you only i have set mine at £120 per month,but i get the same result.
Its not easy to do is it

[the red carpet]

whats your maximum cost per click?

you need this pretty high or you will get outbid at times and that will as you say make your add not show

[Michel Roberts]

I have set my maximun cost per click at £1.50p and the spend per day at £20.00 (nearly £600.00 per month just to test it) and after  nearly Two weeks have had not a single ckickthrough !Spent a large part of the weekend going through adwords help pages and just ended up even more confused.

 It s really anoying as I am sure this could be a really good way to connect with customer's particulary for one off carpet fitting/repairs type jobs if only I could fiqure out what I am doing wrong. I suspect it's something simple I have overlooked. It does make me feel a bit better that other people are having the same problems as it shows it is not all that straightforward to do

Red, did you get that e-mail I sent you last week with my adwords logon and password details?

Regards Michel