Do you need an Adwords trainer?

Today I received a discount code for advertising on LinkedIn, for some reason I then went to do a search and saw a link “we are #1 on google search for Adwords trainer – try it and find out”.  This showed About 290,000 results. This got me thinking. Why I even started this I don’t know but it was a useful 30 minute exploration.

Early in 2004/5 when I first started this site I did try using adwords to raise traffic to the then new website. Like many consulting or training firms it is important to get seen on the web. To some extent it worked, but I was not getting the sales I expected (in fact none! some traffic but no increase in sales). With the cost of pay-per-clock increasing for my chosen keywords I descided that it may not be the best marketing strategy for me. If you use the wrong keywords then there is no point in paying for the adverts at all! Several colleagues I know love adwords – so it must work for some.

What is an Adword?

For those of you that don’t know, Adwords are Google’s text adverts that you see on search result pages and some websites. Generally they consist of:

• Title
• 2 lines of text
• a URL or web link

Each is very limited in length or number of characters. So you do not have a lot of flexibility, although Google does provide tools to test various word combinations and provides some valuable information on clicks etc.

Adwords – and similar advertising approaches on other search engines raise a lot of money – so if you are going to invest in this technology you must make sure you get it right. For even just pating a few pennies per click can addup over time if it is not adding any value (new customers)

Before writing any advert for the web you need to make sure you know the search terms that potential customers will be using – or the wrong people will see you adverts! Its also worth looking at your competition to see what they are doing.

So the question is – do you need an Adwords Trainer?

This is an interesting one.  There arre a lot of people selling social media and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)  solutions – is this just one of them? – a lot of money for only really being one page ahead of the client?

All of my SEO skills have been learn through reading what is on the web, and trying it out. The one think I have learnt is that there is no single solution other than effort and trial & error – and from my experience each keyword requires a different approach.

Is it worth a company having a SEO trainer? well i am not convinced. If the people responsible for marketing cannot “get under the boot” of such a simple tool – 4 lines of text up to 20 characters each – then how can they really manage any larger promotions?

Tips for hiring anyone to do with web promotions:

1. Are they on the first page of google – check Bing, Ask & Yahoo too
   • make sure the search does not require the use of quotes eg “adword training”
2. How many results are shown – the “about” figure
   • if its less than 1m then its a niche and easy to get, unless it contains a geographic location(i.e. Adword trainer in Richmond
3. Do they use the technology they promote – so do adword trainers use adwords? – did their advert appear in the search?
4. Do they have other people linking to their site
5. Does their Ecademy or LinkedIn profile appear higher than their site?

Above all use people that your contacts have used with success – trust people you have done business with – if not make sure there is a guarantee that if you do not get the result you want/ expect you will not pay! Pay only on results not input – this is true for all SEO, PR and other such “black art” services. If the provider is as good as they say they are it must be a results based service. Outputs – not inputs!