[happy mondays]

Its good to have an organic listing on page one. But google is a business and makes money from adwords. They are placed in the most prominent position on the page, SEO companys will always rave on about organic listings being better to get your business. IMO adwords works better, although it is beneficial for any type of business to have both listings displayed on page one, obviousley for finance reasons for any business its better for the potential customer to click on the organic listing cause its free. Good seo can cost far more than a decent adwords campaign. Money talks.

[jasonl]

So, Westy , for me in Bournemouth, how do I go about setting up and operating adwords , are there companies who will do it for me ?

I have heard nightmare stories of people running up multi thousand pound bills in days , and of people spending a few  hundred for no return.

[derek west]

google will set it up for you jase, cost ya £5 for setting up the whole campaign and they stay with ya for a month to see how its going, then just set ya budget and your away, turn it on and off with a click of your mouse. peasy

[Mike Halliday]

I ran 4 AdWords campaigns for carpet cleaning & powerwashing cost me £40 a month.

 basically if anyone within 15miles of my postcode typed anything to do with carpet, upholstery, leather cleaning & powerwashing I would appear at the top

it didn't pay for it self

[Carpet Dawg]

Adwords are a compete waste of money IMO I've tried it with several products that i sold via an affilate program and had no luck. You really need to know what your doing and can be costly quickly! I've never tried it with my carpet cleaning business but from what i have heard from other local businessmen and woman it sucks for them too..
Organic listing and local buisiness listing are the vital ones. ( the ones that appear next to the map) Alot of people are getting "ads sponsored by google" blind and wont bother clicking on them and would rather check out the proper listings, thats what i have found from my experances and testing.

And on a darker note, there are loads of competitors that will constantly click on your ads (costing you money!!) get their friends to click OR use a proxie server (alot easier than it sounds), constantly changing thier IP address , then click on your ads (google wont be able to detect click fraud that way....

But dont let that put you off Jason, go a head and try it. Like Derek said, its easy to set up and monitor. Here's the link http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/ads/ then click on Adwords on the left of the screen.
The offer of a seo'd, feeder site is still there too....

Good posts by Ian and Garry! Like Garry said, I dont want to give out my niches, keywords and way of working away! Took me a LONG time to achive what i have.. As tempting as it is Mike lol

Weldone, you caught me lol If i wasn't working today and seen Mikes post earlier i'd of happly shared my carpet cleaning site. Like Bob said, not exactly Taggert legue detective work! lol
My site is pretty pish if i am honest, its built purely for seo and its dated! Its 5 years old, been modified twice in that time! I have a list of things that i want changed/added/taken away!! but just not had the time in the last few months to get round to it.

Westy, i did build it! do you think i would of paid for that! lol The chap that owns the hosting/design company (Paul) is a good friend of mine, and when he started up a couple of years ago i was his first hosting clients plus i gave him a link on my site as it had a PR4 at the time (now a pr3) to boost his link juice. My site is 5 years old, and the link has only been there 2ish years.

Tony

[clinton]

Long as you get work from it tony thats good.

Jason why dont you get in touch with kev loomes hes great at the seo etc and websites mate..

[derek west]

tony
you say youve got a list of things that need doing on your site but not had time to do it, yet you seem to think that mark should be doing all that and building the site for £200. don't understand mate. i've quite enjoyed some of your posts over the months but slating someone who gives value for money for newbies who aint got a clue about web design is out of order mate. we've all got mouths to feed, and your words may just lose mark a few jobs, unjustly imo.

[cannon]

Im trying out adwords at the minute and im still undecided. Personally whenever i search for anything i dont usually bother with the sponsored links, dont know why, but i normally skip past them. It is concerning that a competitor can click away and use up your daily budget. Having said this im gonna give it a decent try and experiment a little, ive just changed the wording today.

Jason its dead easy and you set a daily budget.

I like google maps and i have a good listing for CARPET CLEANERS SUNDERLAND. but not for any other keywords such as CARPET CLEANING SUNDERLAND. If anyone has some tips on google maps that would be great.

[Doug Holloway]

Hi Guys

Organic listings are worth having as they are free apart from the SEO, which you can do a lot of yourself.
I was talking to my partner about this the other day as she was researching holidays and she said she doesn't use the sponsored listings because they're not very good.

However some have used adwords effectively and it's no different to Yell or newspapers, you have a budget and check your return to see if it's worth it.

Obviously Google want to make money but are clever enough to realise that searchers want good quality relevance and organic will always be best for this.

I have hundreds of high rankings spread across a lot of sites which generate lots of leads, works for me!

Cheers

Doug

[garry22]

you say youve got a list of things that need doing on your site but not had time to do it, yet you seem to think that mark should be doing all that and building the site for £200. don't understand mate. i've quite enjoyed some of your posts over the months but slating someone who gives value for money for newbies who aint got a clue about web design is out of order mate. we've all got mouths to feed, and your words may just lose mark a few jobs, unjustly imo.

Derek,

Happily, I don't think this will affect Mark's business at all.

Virtually all carpet cleaning web marketing is local service based. In other words, it's targeting a local market with less competition so you can get away with duplication of site layout and content.

Most search terms are a keyword phrase (say, "carpet cleaning") with a geographical modifier (say, "sunderland").

As Mark himself says, a local site with half decent on-page optimisation (which most people on here refer to as SEO) will be enough. The problem comes if there is a bit of competition, as Karl is experiencing in the north east.

Then, you move beyond just on page stuff to "proper" web marketing. That's where you really have to put the time in. One site I have been involved with has had over 300 hours of work put in (totally different market).

I was talking to someone who is in the private health niche and you need over 15,000 backlinks to scrape onto page one in the UK. in carpet cleaning you do not need anywhere near this amount of commitment

In nineteen times out of twenty, Marks £ 200 sites are good enough to rank well.

I've stated before on here that I think he is barmy to charge just £ 200. If however, both he and his clients are happy with that, then fine.

I personally feel he will continue to have a queue of customers wanting his services.

[happy mondays]

I ran 4 AdWords campaigns for carpet cleaning & powerwashing cost me £40 a month.

 basically if anyone within 15miles of my postcode typed anything to do with carpet, upholstery, leather cleaning & powerwashing I would appear at the top

it didn't pay for it self

  Why are you still using adwords then Mike? Just checked carpet cleaners hull and you have a sponsered listing, and before you or any one asks no I didnt click on the link.

So, Westy , for me in Bournemouth, how do I go about setting up and operating adwords , are there companies who will do it for me ?

I have heard nightmare stories of people running up multi thousand pound bills in days , and of people spending a few hundred for no return.

Hi Jason, as has been said its very easy to set up. It will only cost you as much as you want it to cost you, if you need any help just give me a shout.

I stand by what I have said, its good to have both listings. Google wouldnt be the business it is today without adwords, hundreds of millions of people use it worldwide, that speaks for itself. 

[happy mondays]

my very weak reply!?!? ah! my detailed reply was pretty indepth actualy if you understood internet marketing, maybe too indeph for your brain to cope with... Your a bit of a rude little twrip aren't you?  a twirp that doesn't want to be told that he's wrong but i'm sure you've been told that before eh  night night

Hey Tony only just noticed this very uncalled for post from you. The only little twirp I can see is the one who has taken his picture in a mirror (see below) My brain is fine pal and I am old enough and wise enough to know when I am wrong.

[Mike Halliday]

westy it shouldn't have shown you don't live within 15miles of my home I'll check my settings.

I enabled the campaigns yesterday to give it another shot

[happy mondays]

westy it shouldn't have shown you don't live within 15miles of my home I'll check my settings.

I enabled the campaigns yesterday to give it another shot

I'm in Hull with my Blackberry  Only Jokin Mike, yea it did show here in sunny cheshire.

[Carpet Dawg]

my very weak reply!?!? ah! my detailed reply was pretty indepth actualy if you understood internet marketing, maybe too indeph for your brain to cope with... Your a bit of a rude little twrip aren't you?  a twirp that doesn't want to be told that he's wrong but i'm sure you've been told that before eh  night night

Hey Tony only just noticed this very uncalled for post from you. The only little twirp I can see is the one who has taken his picture in a mirror (see below) My brain is fine pal and I am old enough and wise enough to know when I am wrong.

Yip thats me! 

What else am i suppose to do! Everyone else has... Its a forum after all and good to show your face

Derek, your probably right but hardly think it'll cost mark any sales. Just think a site without seo is like a Ferrari without wheels, a wedding without guests, a cup of coffee without the cup....... Here, whats happend to your name n all that?

Mike, giving a good offer on the Adwords ad will boost the success rate. A bit like leaflets i suppose.

[garry22]

There is a huge difference between a web designer and a web marketer.

I would never let a web designer anywhere near my internet marketing stuff.

The web marketer is the architect, the web designer is the bricky (no offence to brickys intended).

Just re read this and realised it might have a dig at certain people...

If Kev or Mark are reading this, I was not referring to you. I meant the airy fairy types (the ones I sometimes have to work with).

I meant the sort who want to produce a graphic masterpiece and to hell with the thing actually making money. The sort who put white type on a black background and think it's cool.

[John Higgins]

Tony your opinoins verge on aragonce to say there is zero Seo on these sites is untrue
I have over one hundred satisfied customers all making money from a negligable investment

If all forms of advertising gave the same returns our sites give carpet cleaners they would be
a lot of very rich carpet cleaners out there.

We have many instances of cleaners actualy turning a profit on the sites before they have
even been finished.

I could name over 20 of our customer who from a £150 - £250 investment have seen comeing close
30 x 40 times income from there intial investment have one who as had nearly £40,000.00 on is and
and hes has add about 9 months

We have always said we can provide additional Seo packages for the sites and at £235.00 leaves a lot of budget
to do this and no tony we dont do this ourselfves  but one of the most respected SEO companys in the Uk
Is employees are earning High End 5 figure salaries.


And by the way tony if you new anything about joomla its not just filling in a form it takes about 15 hours to build one of our sites
I find your comments insulting. - As you would if I said all you do is a vac a carpet - anybody could do that

I Know your not suposed to make personal critisms of people on this baord - but some honest advice and some of the  old timers on this board will advise the same - dont be arragont in business eventually it turns round and bites you

[Carpet Dawg]

I Know your not suposed to make personal critisms of people on this baord - but some honest advice and some of the  old timers on this board will advise the same - dont be arragont in business eventually it turns round and bites you

You should take yout own advice Mark....

There is no seo on the sites i have seen Mark, simple as that really. Just an ugly seo'd URL and interlinking of all the sites on the same IP address i take it? This is also called a link farm and google dont take too kindly to it or at the very least wont pass on any link juice.

Yes, I give you the fact that for £200 people get a site. But like i said before, a site without seo is like a ferrari without wheels etc etc some got lucky with thier site appearin the the top 10 as there is no compition what so ever!

15 hours to build a joomla site!!  are you hard coding everything from scratch? If its a temeplete with customer provided content then i cant see it taking longer than an hour. Sorry but the truth hurts i know.

Right, had enough of this thread lol its like getting blood from a bloody stone i tell ya! its logic man!

[John Higgins]

tony the only reason your site ranks is not great seo
its your dodgy black hat blog linking campaign hiding your url in as many unrelated blog posts as posible
very naughty and unethical

I would never try to rank a site like this

[garry22]

tony the only reason your site ranks is not great seo
its your dodgy black hat blog linking campaign hiding your url in as many unrelated blog posts as posible
very naughty and unethical

I would never try to rank a site like this

No.

It is ranked where it is because (according to the most current alghorithm) Google regards it as the most relevant site for that keyword search. This is against stiff competition from Robert Watson and Fraser (Tre Allen).