I am considering using Adwords to boost my niche market forum. I have a budget to use for this but it is not a ton. Since it is niche I expect the ad cost to be very low .5-.10 per click would be my guess. Is this a good idea? Any ideas on how to word my ad? thanks for any comments
Hi Depends on your goals if you do not mind spending $1.00 or $2.00 or $3.00 to get one new user, then yes it can work well.... but remember a click does not guarantee anything. So you need to look at conversions will 1 in 10 join or 1 in 20 ? then you need to ask yourself is this a sane method for me to try? If you have deep pockets enough to do this please PM first to spend your money for you Hope this helps
There is a good possibility it will be that or worse as I said $2.00 or more per sign up. But spend $50.00 and find out for sure as I am by no means perfect or claim to be an expert. I would study Adwords a bit to understand how ad writing and keyword selection will effect your performance.
All depends on your short and long term goals for the forum. AdWords can be great tool to drive qualified traffic to your forum. I've run campaigns where people were getting a 35% conversion (registration) on clicks under $0.05 each. My advice: test, test, then test everything (ad copy, keywords, networks) again. Every campaign is unique so there's no cookie cutter formula for making it work.
GuyfromChicago, thanks for the advice. I think it is worth, at least, a good adwords test. thanks again.
When it comes to forums, just make sure you don't pigeon hole yourself into a small keyword set or theme. A nice part about forums is the ability to add new, related content very quickly. By simply making a new thread you can expand your available targeted keyword selection almost instantly. So if you have a forum about dogs you could easily make thread about training techniques, history of breeds, boarding considerations, health tips, etc, etc and send targeted traffic directly to those threads. To many people get hung up on bidding for very broad terms with high traffic potential like "dog" or "pets" and completely ignore the hundreds/thousands of more targeted phrases that are available to them.
hey and please keep us (or at least me ) up to date how the conversion rates are. my contribution: as you are promoting a niche specific forum you will certainly reach higher conversion rates than when you would promote very general forums!
Yes, and my point was you can promote niche topics within a general forum. Every thread is it's own niche
If I were you, I'd avertised elsewhere. Otherwise, there's a big risk you'll just be losing your money.
I used to use Adwords for my golf forum. I'd say $1 per sign up is a great number. Even $2 is OK. Anything more than that, though and it may not be worth it. It'll pay off in the long term. You need users at first to establish the community and then things will take off on its own.
I would say that your results will vary fits here a great deal You have to take into consideration what competition the forum faces for the keyword terrms and phrases, whether to use broad, specific, or exact match and negative keyword terms. I also feel that if you are simply trying to fill forums there are better methods or places to advertise at less of a cost and risk factor. You might want to try PPC with ask.com or momma before jumping onto Adwords, and for that matter to be perfectly honest Yahoo Overture could send better converting traffic. It would have for a golf forum, I am sure, as golfing is community related in ways and Yahoos viral community edge cannot be discounted. Like gambling use your head .....bid with your head and not over it....