Google AdWords Coaching | AdWords Advertising Coaching Courses

Advertising Agency and SEM Start Up AdWords Coaching

adwcoach — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 02:52:42 +0000

Over the last year I have had some interesting calls with several people who have either worked for a search engine marketing company or have managed an account or two for the company they have worked in. They have developed the entrepreneurial sprit just like I did 7 years ago when I worked out I could teach what I know to others.

With so many variations of campaigns that can be done for your clients, your education needs to keep pace, here are a few examples

Search Campaigns
Display Network Campaigns (Auto & Targeted)
Mobile Device Campaigns
Retargeting Campaigns
Geographical campaigns
And many other reasons why you would separate out your clients campaigns.

Add to that things like:

Ad Extensions
Google Places listings
Understanding Reports
Mastering the AdWords Editor
Split Testing
Page optimization
And the List Goes on.

You clients just expect you to know all of this and how to implement it. Also as a start up, getting access to someone at Google is not easy either. While I do manage hundreds of accounts across dozens of industries I’m not looking to manage your accounts too. (however, if the price was right)
Obviously Agencies are generally well versed and have someone in house to manage AdWords Campaigns, Can this persons skills be improved? It only takes 5 minutes to identify if all that can be done is being done.

For start up SEM agencies, could you benefit from someone with 7+ years in the industry, who has a very high conversion rate from inquiries to sales? The search engine marketing business can be very lucrative for an ambitious individual with some sales/marketing skills. You only have to show a local small/medium business how to increase their leads by 10-30% and reduce their cost per acquisition. There is no reason why they would not go with you.

What I’m proposing for any ambitious entrepreneur looking to get into the industry is:

Free Training with view to become Google qualified yourself
Associate your business with mine & leverage my experience and credentials
Assist you with converting your leads in to sales via in person mettings of 3 way calls
Work with you to build and manage your clients accounts.

Initially my payment is only a percentage of profits, Terms would need to be worked out, but I would envisage a 6-12 month process to establish yourself and going forward you would run your own business whereby you retain all profits other than any ongoing consulting fees that you may require. Initially, I only make money if you do.

In saying all this, this post is only me thinking out load, every situation is going to be different and require a different approach.

Bottom line is if you would like to take your AdWords skills to a new level in your current position or as described, break out and do it on your own, please call me on 07 3348 7394 and will be happy to have a friendly discussion about it with you.

The Yellow Pages and Google AdWords

adwcoach — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 12:37:09 +0000

Was having a discussion with a client today who, lets say is easily lead when it comes to being sold on ways to generate new business. He is in a cut throat industry and if your AdWords ad is not in the top 3 you really don’t stand much of a chance.

Today it was the yellow pages that visited him and offered him a $440 per month deal which was going to get him some sort of new website. If he didn’t have a website at all, I would understand, however he has 14 great looking websites already.
When you have a perfectly good site, why would you create a website like the ones below. I sort of feel sorry for these guys, 4 competing ads with almost identical landing pages. I just stumpled across this result as I was conducting a website review for someone in this industry. I know I can get in the top 3 with this sort of result.

Google may even turn around soon and only allow one to advertise, just like what happened with the affilate industry a few years back. Where will that leave the other 3 who will not show?

Here would be my top reasons not to go with something like this:

The Account is probably set up by them, you have no access and you won’t really know what each click is costing you
Google is on a quest to provide a good user experience, These types of sites can not compete with a good looking website that offer real content

If you are considering this type of marketing, you really should consider getting your own website and directing visitors directly to it from some well written Google Ads.

Here is all it will take:

A Domain Name (a .com.au is no more than $40 for 2 years)
Hosting is about $50-100 a year
A new website should be no more that $660, really depends how many photos and pages you want included.
It could probably be set up well before yellow pages fiddled around with paperwork and actually getting someone to do it.

Yes I offer all of these services, and if you are a tradie and give me a call I’ll not only set all this up for you, you will get any changes you need to the site free for 12 months, if fact if it is only minor i’ll probably do it for years to come. Certainly happy to give you a few numbers of other tradies who I’ve helped and they will give you the low down on how I can help you.

Bottom line is this, Why would you as a consumer, go to a domain name with yellowpages in it, when you can go directly to a website that is going to offer what they are looking for.

How to Set Up Google AdWords Re-Marketing Campaign

adwcoach — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 23:54:45 +0000

A feature often overlooked by advertisers who use the Google AdWords Display Network is Remarketing. In this Video, I’ll show you how to Set up a AdWords Remarketing campaign to better target those visitors who have visited certain pages within your website.
They key is to Set up the code on certain pages within your website ahead of time, it will take just a few mintes to generate the code and insert it. It could be your landing page, a sales page, your shopping cart page. Then there are visitors who do convert, 6 months later you may have a new product that you may want to target just to them with a specific image ad. The possibilities are endless.

As always if you have any questions, get in touch.

AdWords Training Australia is Now an AdWords Certified Company

adwcoach — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 12:24:44 +0000

After a number of years umming and arring about completing the qualifications to become an AdWords qualified individual, the deed is finally done. As of late last year Google had retired the previous version of the professionals program, meaning that all those individuals/businesses had to reset the test (Now 2 tests) to maintain their status. So when you see those older style logos (white background) there is a fair chance these businesses are not recognised by Google.
Don’t get me wrong, most of these guys know what they are doing. One of the reasons I never went through the whole process previously is that the qualification was too easy and anyone could pass the test, I personally managed accounts of several qualified individuals who really didn’t know what they were doing with adwords at an account level, buy boy could they sell it well.

If you are considering doing the test, study up hard, the 1st test is not that hard, but you will be found out on the 2nd one if you are not actively managing accounts on a daily basis. Good luck if you are applying soon.

Here is the little badge of honor that Google give you and the link to my current status.

If you need an account overhaul for the year ahead, You can book me for 2 hours, You look at my screen while I ask you questions about your business and you help me fix your account. The whole thing is recorded and you get a copy to download and review. Check out details here.

Understanding Google AdWords Quality Score

adwcoach — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 04:41:27 +0000

Today I have a video explaining all about Google AdWords Quality score. The only people who really know about AdWords quality score are the technicians who create the AdWords program. Every time I have ever spoken with a live person from Google, they seem to be in the dark like the rest of us as for as Quality score is concerned.
What we do know is that at least 50% of the quality score is made up of the click through rate (CTR), so it makes sense to have a well optimised campaign with ad groups with a tight theme of keywords with a well written ad and sending the visitor to a page with relevant information.

I hope this video makes sense to you.

How Does Google AdWords Track Click Fraud?

adwcoach — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 02:29:12 +0000

A common question I hear all the time is… Will my competitors click on my ads to to spend my daily budget, therefor leaving it open for their ads to display?
Of course it happens, but Google are very good at detecting this and will issue you a credit to your account for any click that they determine is of poor quality or a blatent click frausd attempt.

Other ways you might get poor quality clicks are from:

Visitors Double Clicking on ads
Visitors who have clicked on your ad within the previous 30 days as long as they have not cleared cookies in their browser. (Your Competitors may do this or it can be genuine visitors looking for you a 2nd time)
If an IP address of a visitor is outside of the Geographical settings within your campaign

After looking after Google AdWords accounts for 6 years & almost $10Million in clicks, I have never had a dispute with a client or Google re: Click Fraud.

Google use a combination of automated and manual steps to identify any clicks that may have been deemed as poor quality. See the image below to see where and How Google re-imburse you for such clicks.

From within your account go to Billing–> Billing Summary to see all the latest trasactions.

How to Add Google AdWords Conversion Tracking Code to WordPress Site

adwcoach — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 00:17:52 +0000

One of the crucial areas of Google AdWords is the ability to track your Leads & Sales. The Google AdWords conversion tracking code only takes a few seconds to install when you know what you are doing. Here is a short video walking you through the process of adding the code to your website.

There is no need to be daunted by this process, if you have a different set up than wordpress, the process is the same, simply add the conversion tracking code to the “Thank You or Confirmation” page after a visitor has filled out a form.
If you can’t do it yourself your web developer will know how and it will only take an expert a minute or so if you can provide the code. If they want to charge you $50 or so to do it, it is time to find another web developer.

P.S There are still some Shopping cart software that does not support this, if you are planning a new site, make some inquiries to ensure this code can be added.

Can I Turn Google Ads on and Off During the Day?

adwcoach — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 06:36:45 +0000

Often I get asked, Can i Turn my Google AdWords account off at certain times of the day? Answer is yes. Why would you do this? There are various resons why and here are a few.

You have a limited daily budget, best to spend it while your customers are most active
You have a call centre and most of you business is done via the phone.
You run a service business like the plumber in the following video, They want to be no. 1 on Google after 6pm when his competitors have shut down their ads.
You may want to keep your ads running in off peak periods and bid lower than peak times.

Here is a short 3 minute video walking you through how to set up “day parting”

2 Must Haves for AdWords and Mobile Devices

adwcoach — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 06:23:46 +0000

There are 2 absolute musts that need to happen if you plan to use Google AdWords to advertise your business via mobile devices.

Make sure that you have a mobile friendly website. By that I mean, it will display properly on a mobile device/phone. if your web site relies on Flash (.swf) files to make your site look pretty online, it won’t on a mobile device. Apple in particular have a thing for Flash and will not support it. Flash does not work on a iPhone or iPad. Make sure that you web site has your phone number on the page in a clickable format so your visitors can just go ahead and click and call you. This is critical for those emergency style of services such as a Plumber or Locksmith. If someone in a emergency situation uses their phone to Google up your service, Your site needs to function in the right way.
In the AdWords Account, there is an option for Ad extensions, if you are in a service industry, by simply adding this feature to your adwords account visitors don’t even need to visit your site, they will just click the number and call. Just make sure your ads are running at the time you are working and you can set them to not display in off peak times.

As with any advertising it is all about making it as easy as possible for your potential customers to contact you, make sure you phone numbers are set up right in your account and on your pages.

Good Luck

Ian

Is Ian Redford an AdWords Expert?

adwcoach — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 00:51:57 +0000

Welcome to the 1st Post on the AdWords Coaching Blog,

The title of this post is a little subjective, am I an AdWords Expert or not? Question is how do you qualify? I’ve heard from a number of gurus that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in anything, The fact is as of December 2010, I have done nothing else except helping business owners with their Google AdWords accounts since Late 2005. Prior to that I had a very keen interest Advertising my own businesses via AdWords. You could say I have been learning since the very early days of AdWords.

How things have changed, Once upon a time it was easy to get lots of traffic and very low cost. Today you have to be very savvy to get on the frontpage and stay there while reducing your cost per click.

Today on Avg, all clients that I help have a combined spend of around $250K per month and is growing all the time. Here is a little proof from a screen shot of my Client manager which shows that $10 Million in Clicks is not too far away

It has been very pleasing to see the growth of some companies, Google AdWords has been very friendly, Some Products & Services can be very difficult, For eg. if you are trying to sell a book for $10. But for the most part, if you have a product or service that is specialised, popular, needed or just the latest fad, Google can work very well, However it can be a disaster if you go in without getting some advice 1st.

So to answer the question, am I an AdWords Expert? Yes I believe so, My 10,000 hours were up quite a long time ago and nothing new can happen in AdWords without me hearing about it from a client or my Google Reps.