I wonder if this thread is to old to reply to, lets find out.
Theres a link for existing yahoo web hosting members to use, to sign up for Google AdWords for a free $50 credit plus $5 sign up credit.
I bookmarked this thread ages ago, and when I seen that promotion it reminded me of this and I thought I would give it a try.
Also, theres a promotion on facebook for a $100 credit with Sony Business on facebook. I dont know anything about this, or if its even worth doing since most of the adds on facebook are a waste of time and I dont look at them most of the time, so I doubt many others do. But incase it could come in handy to anyone here, heres the link.
Since this thread popped up:-)
I have been using AdWords for about 8 month. I landed me one nice double job (about $500 total), few cold leads - and it costed me about $800, if not more.
I'm mostly inclined to blame myself, though. My ads were good, and I was getting all the hits I wanted. However, my web presentation was not on par with the ads, hence almost zero conversion rate.
So, the word of advice: don't spend your money on ads if you don't have a good website to land them on...
And how do we know if we have a good website to back the ads up with?
A good friend of mine works for a company that sells ad space on google, so I'm thinking about doing something like this. I really want to get my website actually getting hits aside from my family and friends, and maybe drum up some business.
I just want to make sure that my website is good enough that if I spent the money (which I don't have because I'm going to school...) something would come from it. Now obviously I know that no one can guarantee that I'll get business even if I "good" website. I'd just at least like to think it's a little more probable. Make sense?
I've been really thinking about doing this lately, and saw this thread and read through the entire thing to get some info. Looks like some people got good responses from it (weddings, shoots, money...) where as nikolai did not, even though the photos that I have seen of his are phenominal (way better than anything I have I believe, but I've also only seen his portraiture shots, where as I do more landscape type stuff). Anyways, I'm rambeling, Any one else have any more recent activity and thoughts with using this for ad space?
Some advantages are hard to quantify. For instance in the two months I have been using it. My ad has shown 5000 times to only people in my area (not including partner sites where it has shown 10,000 additional times). My click through rate is not all that high, however I keep running into people saying "oh yeah, I know who you are, I saw your ad on such and such" So what is that value in that? Unknown, but at least they know I exist and when and if they need a photographer hopefully that familiarity will help land them with me. Tests show that it's not just how good your ad is (mine is pretty basic), it's how often people see it and think of you. The click through is a bonus.
I am currently upping my monthly budget through the wedding booking season and will back off it as summer hits. The click rate doesn't justify the higher budget long term. But for now the extra exposure is likely to be worth it. My site traffic is way up at the moment due to all the people searching for wedding photographers, and while that mad dash is on I want my name to pop up all over the place.
Some folks have asked and I am no longer using Adwords. In my experience....YMMV....the closer I got to my current rates, the less good leads I got from this method.
Bottom line, when I was dirt cheap/undercutting the competition (not on purpose, I'll admit it, I was ignorant!), Adwords worked, because price was the main factor.
When I started competing against well-established photogs, nothing has beat (for me) establishing great relationships with other wedding vendors (catering managers, wedding planners, DJs), providing them with free prints, albums and goodies to keep talking me up.
Some folks have asked and I am no longer using Adwords. In my experience....YMMV....the closer I got to my current rates, the less good leads I got from this method.
Bottom line, when I was dirt cheap/undercutting the competition (not on purpose, I'll admit it, I was ignorant!), Adwords worked, because price was the main factor.
When I started competing against well-established photogs, nothing has beat (for me) establishing great relationships with other wedding vendors (catering managers, wedding planners, DJs), providing them with free prints, albums and goodies to keep talking me up.
That's a very good point!
"Indifferent advertizing" only pushes everything to the lowest bidder.
OTOH, when a customer hears a positive reference from a person s/he already knows, s/he is willing to pay the premium!
So I have a friend who recently got a job with a company called NetBiz. It's a company that works directly with Google and other search engine companies for advertising space. Basically what can be done is the customer (you) buy a certain phrase (i.e. Oregon Wedding Photographer) and when someone searches that exact phrase your advertisement is guaranteed to be on the first page at the top and right where the "Sponsored Links" are. It's a month to month pay basis and depending on the phrase you want to buy, depends on how much per month it is, with an initial, one time set up fee of $79 (ish...I think, bad memory). He said that they monitor the searches to make sure that your advertisment is always on the first page and where it needs to be. It is not on a per click basis like Google AdWords, so click fraud is not an option. Apparently, which is seen frequently, is other competeing companies will click the advertisement a bunch of times so that the monthly limit is reached and the advertisement looses it's space on the first page and goes away. With the montly fee there can be an unlimited number of clicks and it's just a flat rate.
Just curious if anyone has heard of this, used this, anything at all. It's too much money for me right now to be investing into something that I can't guarantee will bring me money back into my wallet, so I can't do it. But (as my other post "Couple Biz Questions" states) it is something that I will be doing in the future, just wanna get planned for it.
My only issue with this is that a) it's rather expensive, but b) when you buy a phrase (ex. Oregon Wedding Photographer), that is what has to be used. Oregon Photographer, or Oregon Wedding Photography, or Portland Wedding Photographer all will not show your link at the top when searched (unless you purchase all phrases obviously, but yeah right, I'm just a poor college kid). So any info or responses is greatly appreciated! Thanks!
Yes, you should include Indianapolis (as well as the generic term "photography"), and every possible combination of photographer, photogrpahers, photography, etc.
Even if you geo-target your campaign (for Indianapolis) in Adwords, if someone in California searches for "Indianapolis Photographer", your ad will show - but not for "photographer" (that would only show in Indianapolis).
Self Promotion Alert:
I actually own a marketing company called Tampa Bay Search (in addition to being the marketing director for my wife's photography business in Tampa, FL) and I manage adwords campaigns professionally for commercial clients (including photographers).
Adwords is confusing, and Google makes it very easy to waste lots of money (and will happily keep on taking it as long as you keep giving it!).
One of the things you absolutely must do is have a professional keyword analysis done. This will tell you exactly what phrases your customers search for on a monthly basis, how many times each phrase is searched for, and how much adwords competition there is for each term.
Sometimes the differences in search volume is shocking, for example (these numbers are made up, but realistic) there might be 2500 searches each month for "Inadianapolis Photography", 1000 for "Indianapolis Photographers" and 50 for "Indianapolis Photographer". Google views each of these as a a distinct keyword phrase, and you can obviously dramatically increase your exposure by targeting the right ones.
There are also what are referred to as "long tail" keyword phrases - quirky phrases that not many people search for. But there may be hundreds of them that, when added up, generate a substantial amount of traffic. These tend to have very low competition (which means low cost per click) and are another way to maximize your adwords dollars.
For comparison, here is a 30 day summary from two of my campaigns, with $100/mo split between them:
[FONT="]Portraits: 18,000 impressions, 73 clicks, Average cost per click: $0.55[/FONT]
[FONT="]Weddings: 28,000 impressions, 114 clicks, Average cost per click: $0.61[/FONT]
[FONT="]If you are getting less than 15,000 to 20,000 impressions per month, or paying much more than 60-70 cents per click, that can be an indication that your campaign is poorly optimized and you can get much more exposure and more bang for the buck by using a keyword analysis, which shouldn't cost you more than $100 from any reputable marketing firm (like mine for instance!).[/FONT]
[FONT="]Good luck with your ads...I hope I shed some light on things for you...
[/FONT]
actually, my top hitting keyword phrases are "indianapolis photographer" and "indianapolis photography." Beyond those specifically, I'm somewhat confused. In Google's adwords settings, I've chosen my ads to show only the indianapolis area. So, am I advised to still put indianapolis in the keyword combinations, or is that redundant? Example, someone IN the indianapolis area that types in maternity photographer, theoretically would my ad appear? Conversely, if I add "Indianapolis" to "maternity photographer", would I be missing locals who didn't add Indianapolis to their search phrase?
Since this thread popped up:-)
I have been using AdWords for about 8 month. I landed me one nice double job (about $500 total), few cold leads - and it costed me about $800, if not more.
I'm mostly inclined to blame myself, though. My ads were good, and I was getting all the hits I wanted. However, my web presentation was not on par with the ads, hence almost zero conversion rate.
So, the word of advice: don't spend your money on ads if you don't have a good website to land them on...
NetBiz
I just wanted to clarify my earlier post about NetBiz being a scam -
I am not familiar with NetBiz in particular. But these types of companies do one of two things:
They sell you a keyword phrase that has very low volume. If only 50 or 100 people per month search for a particular phrase there will be very little competition for it in adwords, thus it costs very little to rank well with an ad targeting that phrase. Say they sell you the phrase "XYX ABC" and they are paying 60 cents per click - 100 people search for it each month, and 40 of those click on it. Your ad cost them $24 (60 x .40). They charged you $79 - not a bad profit margin.
They sell you a good keyword phrase, but they only show your ads in a very narrow geogrpahic area (like your zip code). Every time you search for the phrase - YOU see your ad and you are thrilled to be at the top of Google. But you're being duped - If someone across town searches for your ad, it's not there! I have only seen this type of campaign work for businesses with a very narrow geographic market, like pizza parlors or video stores- they only sell within a few miles' radius, so this can be a very cost-effective way for them to advertise...Not so much for Photographers!
Canon Rebel T1i | Canon 50mm 1.8 | Tamron 28-75mm 2.8 | Canon 75-300mm EF f 4.5 III | Opteka Grip | Canon 580exII | 2 Vivitar 383 Flash's and a home studio setup.
congratulations! I've been using the tips from here for my Google adwords campaign too and I've snared two clients in the past month and I'm only doing a $1 a day in advertising too!
Comments
Impressions: 40,000+
Clicks: 100+
Cost: ~$20
Leads: 0.0
----
I guess I need to do something different...
Glass: >Sigma 17-35mm,f2.8-4 DG >Tamron 28-75mm,f2.8 >Canon 100mm 2.8 Macro >Canon 70-200mm,f2.8L IS >Canon 200mm,f2.8L
Flash: >550EX >Sigma EF-500 DG Super >studio strobes
Sites: Jim Mitte Photography - Livingston Sports Photos - Brighton Football Photos
Theres a link for existing yahoo web hosting members to use, to sign up for Google AdWords for a free $50 credit plus $5 sign up credit.
I bookmarked this thread ages ago, and when I seen that promotion it reminded me of this and I thought I would give it a try.
Also, theres a promotion on facebook for a $100 credit with Sony Business on facebook. I dont know anything about this, or if its even worth doing since most of the adds on facebook are a waste of time and I dont look at them most of the time, so I doubt many others do. But incase it could come in handy to anyone here, heres the link.
http://apps.facebook.com/visabusiness/sign_up
You may have spent $30 on marketing but you backed it up with a million dollars worth of talent!
Moderator of: Location, Location, Location , Mind Your Own Business & Other Cool Shots
I have been using AdWords for about 8 month. I landed me one nice double job (about $500 total), few cold leads - and it costed me about $800, if not more.
I'm mostly inclined to blame myself, though. My ads were good, and I was getting all the hits I wanted. However, my web presentation was not on par with the ads, hence almost zero conversion rate.
So, the word of advice: don't spend your money on ads if you don't have a good website to land them on...
A good friend of mine works for a company that sells ad space on google, so I'm thinking about doing something like this. I really want to get my website actually getting hits aside from my family and friends, and maybe drum up some business.
I just want to make sure that my website is good enough that if I spent the money (which I don't have because I'm going to school...) something would come from it. Now obviously I know that no one can guarantee that I'll get business even if I "good" website. I'd just at least like to think it's a little more probable. Make sense?
I've been really thinking about doing this lately, and saw this thread and read through the entire thing to get some info. Looks like some people got good responses from it (weddings, shoots, money...) where as nikolai did not, even though the photos that I have seen of his are phenominal (way better than anything I have I believe, but I've also only seen his portraiture shots, where as I do more landscape type stuff). Anyways, I'm rambeling, Any one else have any more recent activity and thoughts with using this for ad space?
OneTwoFiftieth | Portland, Oregon | Modern Portraiture
My Equipment:
Bodies: Canon 50D, Canon EOS 1
Lenses: Canon 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5, Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS, Canon 50mm f/1.4, Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro, Canon MP-E 65mm f/2.8
Lighting: Canon 580EXII, Canon 420 EX, 12" Reflector, Pocket Wizard Plus II (3), AB800 (3), Large Softbox
Stability: Manfrotto 190CXPRO3 Tripod, Manfrotto 488RC4 Ball Head, Manfrotto 679B Monopod
www.tednghiem.com
Cool. Well keep us updated!
OneTwoFiftieth | Portland, Oregon | Modern Portraiture
My Equipment:
Bodies: Canon 50D, Canon EOS 1
Lenses: Canon 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5, Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS, Canon 50mm f/1.4, Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro, Canon MP-E 65mm f/2.8
Lighting: Canon 580EXII, Canon 420 EX, 12" Reflector, Pocket Wizard Plus II (3), AB800 (3), Large Softbox
Stability: Manfrotto 190CXPRO3 Tripod, Manfrotto 488RC4 Ball Head, Manfrotto 679B Monopod
I am currently upping my monthly budget through the wedding booking season and will back off it as summer hits. The click rate doesn't justify the higher budget long term. But for now the extra exposure is likely to be worth it. My site traffic is way up at the moment due to all the people searching for wedding photographers, and while that mad dash is on I want my name to pop up all over the place.
My Site
Some folks have asked and I am no longer using Adwords. In my experience....YMMV....the closer I got to my current rates, the less good leads I got from this method.
Bottom line, when I was dirt cheap/undercutting the competition (not on purpose, I'll admit it, I was ignorant!), Adwords worked, because price was the main factor.
When I started competing against well-established photogs, nothing has beat (for me) establishing great relationships with other wedding vendors (catering managers, wedding planners, DJs), providing them with free prints, albums and goodies to keep talking me up.
50mm 1.4, 85mm 1.8, 24-70 2.8L, 35mm 1.4L, 135mm f2L
ST-E2 Transmitter + (3) 580 EXII + radio poppers
"Indifferent advertizing" only pushes everything to the lowest bidder.
OTOH, when a customer hears a positive reference from a person s/he already knows, s/he is willing to pay the premium!
Just curious if anyone has heard of this, used this, anything at all. It's too much money for me right now to be investing into something that I can't guarantee will bring me money back into my wallet, so I can't do it. But (as my other post "Couple Biz Questions" states) it is something that I will be doing in the future, just wanna get planned for it.
Their website is www.netbiz.com.
My only issue with this is that a) it's rather expensive, but b) when you buy a phrase (ex. Oregon Wedding Photographer), that is what has to be used. Oregon Photographer, or Oregon Wedding Photography, or Portland Wedding Photographer all will not show your link at the top when searched (unless you purchase all phrases obviously, but yeah right, I'm just a poor college kid). So any info or responses is greatly appreciated! Thanks!
OneTwoFiftieth | Portland, Oregon | Modern Portraiture
My Equipment:
Bodies: Canon 50D, Canon EOS 1
Lenses: Canon 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5, Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS, Canon 50mm f/1.4, Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro, Canon MP-E 65mm f/2.8
Lighting: Canon 580EXII, Canon 420 EX, 12" Reflector, Pocket Wizard Plus II (3), AB800 (3), Large Softbox
Stability: Manfrotto 190CXPRO3 Tripod, Manfrotto 488RC4 Ball Head, Manfrotto 679B Monopod
OneTwoFiftieth | Portland, Oregon | Modern Portraiture
My Equipment:
Bodies: Canon 50D, Canon EOS 1
Lenses: Canon 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5, Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS, Canon 50mm f/1.4, Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro, Canon MP-E 65mm f/2.8
Lighting: Canon 580EXII, Canon 420 EX, 12" Reflector, Pocket Wizard Plus II (3), AB800 (3), Large Softbox
Stability: Manfrotto 190CXPRO3 Tripod, Manfrotto 488RC4 Ball Head, Manfrotto 679B Monopod
Even if you geo-target your campaign (for Indianapolis) in Adwords, if someone in California searches for "Indianapolis Photographer", your ad will show - but not for "photographer" (that would only show in Indianapolis).
Self Promotion Alert:
I actually own a marketing company called Tampa Bay Search (in addition to being the marketing director for my wife's photography business in Tampa, FL) and I manage adwords campaigns professionally for commercial clients (including photographers).
Adwords is confusing, and Google makes it very easy to waste lots of money (and will happily keep on taking it as long as you keep giving it!).
One of the things you absolutely must do is have a professional keyword analysis done. This will tell you exactly what phrases your customers search for on a monthly basis, how many times each phrase is searched for, and how much adwords competition there is for each term.
Sometimes the differences in search volume is shocking, for example (these numbers are made up, but realistic) there might be 2500 searches each month for "Inadianapolis Photography", 1000 for "Indianapolis Photographers" and 50 for "Indianapolis Photographer". Google views each of these as a a distinct keyword phrase, and you can obviously dramatically increase your exposure by targeting the right ones.
There are also what are referred to as "long tail" keyword phrases - quirky phrases that not many people search for. But there may be hundreds of them that, when added up, generate a substantial amount of traffic. These tend to have very low competition (which means low cost per click) and are another way to maximize your adwords dollars.
For comparison, here is a 30 day summary from two of my campaigns, with $100/mo split between them:
[FONT="]Portraits: 18,000 impressions, 73 clicks, Average cost per click: $0.55[/FONT]
[FONT="]Weddings: 28,000 impressions, 114 clicks, Average cost per click: $0.61[/FONT]
[FONT="]If you are getting less than 15,000 to 20,000 impressions per month, or paying much more than 60-70 cents per click, that can be an indication that your campaign is poorly optimized and you can get much more exposure and more bang for the buck by using a keyword analysis, which shouldn't cost you more than $100 from any reputable marketing firm (like mine for instance!).[/FONT]
[FONT="]Good luck with your ads...I hope I shed some light on things for you...
[/FONT]
I just wanted to clarify my earlier post about NetBiz being a scam -
I am not familiar with NetBiz in particular. But these types of companies do one of two things:
- They sell you a good keyword phrase, but they only show your ads in a very narrow geogrpahic area (like your zip code). Every time you search for the phrase - YOU see your ad and you are thrilled to be at the top of Google. But you're being duped - If someone across town searches for your ad, it's not there! I have only seen this type of campaign work for businesses with a very narrow geographic market, like pizza parlors or video stores- they only sell within a few miles' radius, so this can be a very cost-effective way for them to advertise...Not so much for Photographers!
Hope that helps to clear things up,Jeff Copeland
My Gear
My Websites - Personal www.ericsmemories.com |"Professional" www.vividphotography.org
My Favorite Photos - Chicago, NYC, DC, London, Prague, Alaska, Yellowstone, Glacier NP, Vermont, Mt. Rushmore, Badlands NP, The Appalachian Trail
My CPC rate may be lower because I am not offering services - just photographs.
My Gear
My Websites - Personal www.ericsmemories.com |"Professional" www.vividphotography.org
My Favorite Photos - Chicago, NYC, DC, London, Prague, Alaska, Yellowstone, Glacier NP, Vermont, Mt. Rushmore, Badlands NP, The Appalachian Trail
My Site http://www.jayclarkphotography.com
Canon Rebel T1i | Canon 50mm 1.8 | Tamron 28-75mm 2.8 | Canon 75-300mm EF f 4.5 III | Opteka Grip | Canon 580exII | 2 Vivitar 383 Flash's and a home studio setup.
My Gear
My Websites - Personal www.ericsmemories.com |"Professional" www.vividphotography.org
My Favorite Photos - Chicago, NYC, DC, London, Prague, Alaska, Yellowstone, Glacier NP, Vermont, Mt. Rushmore, Badlands NP, The Appalachian Trail
www.pictureyourworld.net
http://pictureyourworldphotography.blogspot.com/
http://www.onedayonepicture.com