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Discussion in 'Google AdWords' started by jda, Jan 31, 2005.

  1. #1
    I launched my site about a month ago and have had about 800 visitors mainly through adwords. The problem is Google is not happy with that amount of traffic. The majority of my keywords have been disabled recently and now I am at a standstill. From what I've read about overture both on its site and in this forum I'm not sure I want to go that route. Can anyone give me some suggestions for an alternative, that won't cost much and will help generate traffic?

    Second question. In case you couldn't tell form that first question I don't have too much experience in all this. I would at some point like to stop relying on google adsense and have advertisers advertise directly through me on my site. My problem is I don't know how to track clicks on individual banners and I doubt any one wants to pay per impression or just pay a flat rate anymore. Any help is great thanks.
     
    jda, Jan 31, 2005 IP
  2. mopacfan

    mopacfan Peon

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    #2
    First, welcome to the forum. Second, what is your site url? What is it that you offer? We can't offer suggestions without knowing the rest of the story. :)
     
    mopacfan, Jan 31, 2005 IP
    jda likes this.
  3. jda

    jda Peon

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    #3
    Well my site like myself is somewhat ambitious. The url is www.lopico.com I don't have enough points to put in a link.
    It is a local business advertising site I would say. Lopico stands for local picks online. It is sort of a collection of "best of" lists for 79(curently) different types of businesses. It is 100% user driven, as in people go to the site and post what they think the best business in their city is in a category like steakhouses. Then I find out the neccesary info about the business and add it to my list. People then vote on the businesses that have been added and create a comletely user driven best of list. Because it is in its infancy and completely user driven I am lacking content at the moment. It may never go anywhere but at the moment I don't have much money put into it.
    I am aware of the volume of this type of site, but I don't really think any of them are that great, and I don't think any of them are as user driven as mine. I also think that this gives you a true reflection of community attitude rather than relying on a critic, which represents the opinion of only one person.
     
    jda, Jan 31, 2005 IP
  4. mopacfan

    mopacfan Peon

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    #4
    Ok, just a few notes. The colors and the layout look very amature. It does not have aura of professionalism about it and that will hurt you. I added a body shop in Missouri. Note: having a window popup full screen saying we will add the details, CLOSE THIS WINDOW is a sure fire means of sending a visitor running for the hills. I think it's a great idea, but the implementation falls far short. Because of this, you will probably find that getting users to enter content will be an uphill battle.

    These are just my opinions, so take it for what it's worth. Good luck and I hope it works out for you.
     
    mopacfan, Jan 31, 2005 IP
  5. jda

    jda Peon

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    #5
    I've actually been thinking about those two issues, hearing it from someone else helps. I'm working on a new home page currently, but as I've said I'm still a novice. Thanks.
     
    jda, Jan 31, 2005 IP
  6. Servetraffic

    Servetraffic Peon

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    #6
    Wow, that is a good idea, a local directory your site could be very huge one day once people start adding their links and they start returning to find a local spot.

    Also on this page http://www.lopico.com/about.htm the word works is cut off, I use 800 x 600 maybe this is why?
     
    Servetraffic, Feb 20, 2005 IP
  7. T0PS3O

    T0PS3O Feel Good PLC

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    #7
    Sounds to me like you don't know (yet) how to manage your AdWords campaigns well enough.

    Ads wil only get disabled if they're, well, crap. It's to protect quality on the Google network. Your ads are not up to spec. Read up on how t successfuly build a campaign. eBooks like Perry Marshall's one, or even Google's own resources can help you out.

    Sounds like you need to choose your KWs better. Too broad and they'll disable them.
     
    T0PS3O, Feb 20, 2005 IP
  8. jda

    jda Peon

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    #8
    well I guess I was sort of a premature poster, I've revised my attack plan for adwords and have had much more success. But really I have more fundamental problems with my site than adwords. Thanks for the input.
     
    jda, Feb 20, 2005 IP
  9. Smyrl

    Smyrl Tomato Republic Staff

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    #9
    One of my clients was approached by site similar to description you gave of yours. They wanted to add your link only if you gave them a backlink. We vetoed on spot. Site had no content, no outbound links, looked horrid, no pagerank ...

    Shannon
     
    Smyrl, Feb 20, 2005 IP
  10. jda

    jda Peon

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    #10
    There's a reason I have such little content in every city other than my home city, and that's because of what my site is and how long it's been up. My site is not a listing of best businesses madde by some critic or someone unattached to the city, to get a business listed on my site people have to go to it add it, I will not allow my site to give out crap information from people not connected to the city. That's why I created it, because I would go to sites like yahoo local and see a bunch of businesses that I knew were no longer in operation, or had changed their name, or were somehow incorrect. It will be a long process at the current rate that I'm getting input, but it will be all quality listings. And LOPICO's only been up since the end of December, so I haven't really had enough visitors to get much information. Probabbly the best page outside of my hometown of Akron, OH is steakhouses in Chicago, I ran an ad targeted to that specific category and got some good feedback. Also look at Akron if you want to see what it looks like with content and yes outgoing links.
    As far as the deisgn I know I have problems and I'm working on those.
    Thanks
    J.D.
     
    jda, Feb 20, 2005 IP
  11. conciseusa

    conciseusa Peon

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    #11
    I have been working on a similar idea for about 3 years at www.5minutesite.com

    It is very hard to get people to enter their information. At this point the project has been more of a learning experience than a money maker. At some point I might just turn it in to a loss leader for a regular web design service.

    One good thing that has come out of it is the Local Keyword Generator http://5minutesite.com/local_keywords.php. I enter a US zip code & radius and it adds the location data to a keyword list. I also added a Permutator to manually add locations or combine keyword lists and options to create copies wrapped in match logic. I was able to create this tool because of all I learned putting together the directory.
     
    conciseusa, May 26, 2005 IP
  12. bradical

    bradical Peon

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    #12
    Hi, I used to work in the Google Adwords program and one of my roles there was as an ad optimization specialist. I highly recommend using Google's customer support as a resource. You can write an email to Adwords Support detailing your concerns and ask for a campaign optimization, and they will most likely help optimize your campaign or pass it to a dedicated optimizer, depending on your spend.

    Also, for your business, I would use the local targeting feature provided by AdWords if you are not already.

    In regard to site design issues, I have had alot of design done for me by posting projects for foreign designers via eLance (eLance.com). You can even ask for prototypes before selecting a winning bidder, and they do it for pennies on the dollar.
     
    bradical, May 26, 2005 IP
    Epica likes this.
  13. Epica

    Epica Well-Known Member

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    #13
    J.D. - just an idea - if I understand correctly you are requiring a reciprical link..? Don't.

    You will probably get a LOT more people who will participate with-out the hassle of putting up a link etc. Then after a while, once you have content on the site THEN you can request or require backlinks.

    There are probably a lot of people on this very forum that would contribute a lot of site to your project - but few would be interested with the whole reciprical link hassle.

    Just an observation.

    I really like the site idea.
     
    Epica, May 26, 2005 IP
  14. conciseusa

    conciseusa Peon

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    #14
    "Also, for your business, I would use the local targeting feature provided by AdWords if you are not already."

    I have spent quite a bit of time on this subject the last few weeks. One thing to keep in mind is when you use the regional targeting in AdWords, Google will attempt to locate the user by their IP address. Two problems with this are many ISPs consolidate their traffic and dump it on to the Internet in a Galaxy far, far away. My ISP places me 3,000 miles from my location! The other problem is what if the user is searching for something outside of their current area?

    My solution is make a list of location targeted keyword phrases. But doing this by hand is a miserable task. Hence the need to create the Local Keyword Generator. I enter a US zip code & radius and it adds the location data to a keyword list.

    As for Google's regional targeting, they don't even have a city list here in the US. I wonder if they don't really put much effort in to this feature because they realize the IP to location problems render the feature marginal at best.

    I run both Google's regional targeting and my localized keyword lists and get a better result from my solution. I run both to cover all the bases.
     
    conciseusa, May 26, 2005 IP
  15. Solicitors Mortgages

    Solicitors Mortgages Well-Known Member

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    #15
    voting for businesses? ...not for me, sorry.
     
    Solicitors Mortgages, May 26, 2005 IP
  16. Andi

    Andi Peon

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    #16
    Lopico is another great idea that could take over the world if only it gets enough momentum. If it were 1996 you could easily get interviews and mainstream press stories about this new internet thingy.

    It will be more difficult now but I think publicity is easier than generating interest through Google Adwords or organic search. You need to get famous quickly or momentum will be elusive. Best of luck.

    Andi
     
    Andi, May 26, 2005 IP
  17. jda

    jda Peon

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    #17
    AzAkers
    "J.D. - just an idea - if I understand correctly you are requiring a reciprical link..? Don't."

    I'm not.

    solicitors mortgages
    "voting for businesses? ...not for me, sorry."

    That's fine. Others like it, and some business owners (mainly small biz, that don't have as much money) think this is really the best type of promotion.

    Bradical
    "In regard to site design issues..."

    I've come a long way on this and continue to make improvements. From the time Mopacfan visited my site there have been drastic changes, and I am now spending the majority of my time working on a final redesign.

    Andi-
    "It will be more difficult now but I think publicity is easier than generating interest through Google Adwords or organic search"

    Couldn't agree more, and I've been trying to expand on what I do for promotion, but I've scaled back the amount I invest in promotion while I'm still finalizing the design. Some cities still have my original design, while others are at an intermediate stage, until I resolve this I don't want people coming to my site and thinking it looks like crap.

    Probabbly one of the best things I've done for free promotion is lopico.blogspot.com, I talk about my site and other things happening on the web, but the main prupose is to generate traffic. This approach was greatly helped when snap.com's blog linked to mine.

    With regard to local targeting, I'm already doing that. I don't have nearly as much of an adwords problem as I used to. One thing that has helped me greatly is snap.com. I use it to try out different keywords to see the volume of searches each generates, then use these as my google keywords. It works for me, maybe it would for others.
     
    jda, Jun 3, 2005 IP