With millions of websites competing for first spot, paying to rank is one way to get certainty that you will be in front your customers. However the trick is knowing that they are your customers.
At WTQ Hosting we have helped a numbers of clients very successfuly over a long period of time, but at the same time, we initially were not able to help ourselves, and have since realised we do not want to. There's a story to this:
There is a process of setting up a campaign, and boy did we learn this the hard way. The initial steps involve working out what keywords or keyphrases to target, and for a web design company like ourselves, it seemed a no brainer to target "web design" as a keyword. Because it was a competitive field the price started around $5 for every single click (back then). So in just a day we had racked up hundreds of clicks, and hundreds of dollars but with no new clients. Nobody signed up.
Naturally that is not sustainable.
Without telling the entire story, what we learned is that we had to get inside the mind of the enquirer. What were "they" thinking when they typed in 'web design.' As it turns out, the majority of people who typed that in were wanting to learn how to build a website, not wanting to hire someone to build a website. A small percentage of people would click our ads out of curiosity, but were not genuine enquiries, and they would then bounce back and click something else. Thus they spent a LOT of our money for no result.
After we worked out our own issues, it all came down to the keywords we used, and the ad wording. For example when we advertised under "website design quote," that was more specific and attract people who we KNEW were wanting to pay to have a website built. But because they were shopping around, they visited many websites, so the trick was making a lasting impression on our own site. So for this keyword, more than just knowing the google ads, and the client was required. We also needed the website to work in a certain way. But at least the financial leakage was now much much less. So you can see there is a process to it all.
In the case of our clients, we have a number of satisfied clients wehre we have been able to collaboratively work out keywords that are efficient, and bring in a steady stream of clients. The hard part is the set up and getting the campaign built correrctly in the beginning. By the time a campaign is setup properly, it requires only basic maintenance, and we are able to keep an eye on a campagin for a minimal cost. The real work is getting it setup and functional. For this we charge an $800 setup fee. The setup fee is charged in two stages, an initial $300 for consultation and planning and campagin setup, then an additional $500 once we have hit key metrics, such as greater than 2% conversion rate and greater than 5% clickthrough. After we hit these metrics, we then charge $90 per month in management fees. The cost of the actual ads is on top of our fees. Yes it is an expensive process, but a well built ads campaign can be a reliable source of new clients.
If this all sounds confusing, its because it is. The best thing to do is talk to us.