I was asked whether I have Google Adwords experience by a trade group, so that I could share some tips about selling AdWords management as a service. Sure, I do have some Google adwords experience. But I also have tremendously more Search Engine Optimization (SEO) experience.
SEO work can sometimes be less expensive than an AdWords account
Here is an example of how SEO can be more important than AdWords. We recently helped get a client up to the number two spot in Google’s organic (free) listings for their very popular search term, simply by working on their site. The client was spending over $5,000 per month, and they were able to drop their adwords account entirely because we got them so high in the organic rankings. This took a fair amount of work, and it cost them money, but the cost was much less than their monthly AdWords buy. Naturally, the cost of Google Adwords accounts can vary depending greatly depending on the search terms / industry / competition / and ad buy strategy in question.
Usability and conversion rates are much more important than search engine ranking alone
In regards to search engines, I am always amazed at business owners that spend a LOT of money to come up high in Google, and yet when you get to their web site, it is riddled with problems that prevent visitors from buying. I’m talking about sites that are nothing more than a brochure. They contain a logo, some “about us” text, and a photo. Lame. Even nicer sites than that have the same problem if they are hard to use, have a cold design, or don’t communicate the value of the product. No one buys on a site like that. Usability, conversion, social networking, blogging, vlogging, back-end business process integration, commerce, email newsletters, Intranets, content management, crm…. all of those things are really my specialties. Getting people TO the site is almost the easy part, to be honest. If you get people there but they don’t buy, I really don’t see the point. I’d rather sell 20% of 2000 visitors, than 0.5% of 10,000.
Before you spend money on an AdWords account, you had BETTER know your web site’s performance numbers first. you can start with installing a free Google Analytics account to get some tracking on your numbers. Doing this early will give you some benchmark numbers that you can use later to track your progress.
Conversion is the rate visitors that are “converted” into buyers after viewing your web site. It is very important to make it as easy as possible to buy from your web site, pay a bill, or ask questions. The easier you make those tasks, the more likely folks are to buy from you. Likewise, be VERY up-front about additional charges, like shipping fees or other steps. Naturally, I can’t post all of our conversion secrets here in my blog, but if you would like a free consultation with me, I can give you lots of additional conversion tips in person.
Site owner greed creates unrealistic expectations
That is a pretty powerful statement, but it is so true. It isn’t the SEO marketers or PPC Adwords marketers that are to blame… There is a TREMENDOUS need that some site owners seem to have to simply “pay a bill, and come up high” in search engines, as if that is a magic bullet that will make their site profitable. It won’t. Sure, there are exceptions to every rule, but more than 90% of the time, the people that I speak with that want to come up high with AdWords really need to take a step back and make their web sites work better first. Most are terrible – especially if I didn’t work on them 
I am practicing what I am preaching in regards to our own web site right now. We’ve been so busy this past year that even our own site is really awful right now, even though our applications and work are getting us a lot of exposure. We have a new site in development that will change all that.
An example of powerful, free marketing from our blog (better than search engines alone)
If you go to http://www.adobe.com/products/dreamweaver, you will see that Adobe put a quote from me on their homepage. Priceless marketing. Did I get that from AdWords? No. It came from one of my blog posts. A movie can make people cry – it can get an emotional response – and buying is an emotional response.
AdWords are great, but they are only part of a strategy. They aren’t the entire strategy. There is a long list of things you need to do to your web site to make sure it is READY for AdWords before you begin to bid on words and phrases through Google.
