| p>John Wood Photography started in 2008 and | | | | those clicks - it seemed like every wedding |
| quickly set up a website to advertise Wedding and | | | | photographer in the area was using the same key |
| Portrait Photographic services. The only problem was | | | | search words and we were simply trying to |
| that no one could find the site because it takes both | | | | out-bidding each other to get the clicks. |
| time and money to rise in the Google Search | | | | The competition for the County in the search phrase |
| Rankings. This is a typical problem for all new | | | | is much higher than the competition for the local |
| websites and Google Ads is one quick solution to this | | | | towns. So separating the county searches into their |
| problem | | | | own campaign meant that they could have a higher |
| Setting up a Google Ad account was easy and within | | | | maximum cost per click and all the town searches |
| a matter of hours people were clicking on the Google | | | | could have a lower maximum cost per click in their |
| adverts and visiting the site. Success, or so it | | | | own campaign. This reduced the average cost per |
| appeared until the cost of the clicks was added up. | | | | click, which mean that there were more clicks per |
| All sorts of people were clicking on the adverts and | | | | day for the same budget. |
| most of them had no intention of buying a service. | | | | The next step was to make the adverts more |
| The advert had simply appeared at the top of the | | | | relevant to the searches. By creating different |
| Google Search page and people had clicked on it. | | | | adverts for each county or town, this gave the |
| The solution was to refine the search criteria for the | | | | adverts a higher quality score and made them more |
| adverts. So when a local town or county was | | | | likely to appear. It also increased the likelihood of a |
| entered in the search words then and only then | | | | potential customer clicking on them. By using different |
| would the advert appear. This meant that only | | | | ad variations it became obvious that if someone |
| people who specifically wanted to find a | | | | search for a specific town then they were more |
| photographer in the local area would see the advert. | | | | likely to click on the adverts which mentioned that |
| The other change was to stop the 'Content | | | | town. |
| Network' adverts. This option allows your adverts to | | | | The subsequent step was to generate a lot of |
| appear in other sites such as eBay. If someone | | | | different key words. There will not be many people |
| searches for photographic equipment then the advert | | | | using each of these phrases and so the competition |
| may appear on that page. As the person was not | | | | for them and the cost per click is relatively low. But |
| looking for a photographer, it is very unlikely that | | | | the chances of your advert appearing are high. These |
| they would pay for a photographic service and | | | | relatively unlikely key word phrases generate the |
| therefore paying for their click does not make sense. | | | | cheapest clicks - you just need to have a lot of |
| These two steps made a huge reduction in the | | | | them. |
| number of impressions (ie the number of times the | | | | The combination of these steps has significantly |
| advert was shown) and also the number of clicks fell | | | | reduced the average cost per click and can either cut |
| significantly, which reduced the costs. | | | | my costs or increase the number of clicks for the |
| The number of clicks per day was then low and the | | | | same total cost. |
| cost of actually getting those clicks was as high as | | | | Please feel free to visit the website and let me know |
| £2 each because of the high demand for | | | | if you think it was worth all this effort. |