Do Google Adwords Work?
I am a small business owner. I am a DUI attorney. I am constantly looking for ways to make my services available to those that need them. And I know what a powerful tool the internet can be for that. With that being said, however, I also know that there are a lot of ways to waste time and money in the hopes of getting clients (or sales, if you are a retail type of business). So, is Google Adwords good or bad?
If you are unfamiliar with Adwords, or I am using the wrong terminology, what I’m talking about are the ads that appear when you search Google for anything. Type in Seattle DUI attorney, for example, and you’ll find three ads right at the top of the page and then a list of ads going down the side of the page. If you click on the next page, you’ll see more ads. The way you get your ad up there is to pay a price every time someone clicks on your ad. The ads are placed by relevancy and by the amount you are willing to pay for a click (for example, in some cases a DUI lawyer click can run you upwards of $25!).
I’ve run a Google adwords campaign for about the last three months. I put myself on the front page in all kinds of different scenarios and with different ads. And the exposure was good. I’d usually get a couple of clicks a day. But do you know how many clients I got? Two. That’s right – two. Now, those two paid for the advertising, but barely. That’s not how to really make money if you are trying to run an internet business.
The more and more I looked at it I began to believe that people I want as clients do two things with those ads. First, they look over them. They want information, not advertisements. Second, if people do click, they are price shopping – not my ideal client. Now, I’m sure there are good clients clicking on those ads, and it’s probably a combination of needing a better call to action on my site and the lack of interest in Google adwords, but I’m not completely sold on Google Adwords yet. But I’ll probably keep using them and tweaking it a little bit to see if I can find something that works.
