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With Pay-To-Play Looming in Horizon, Will you Focus More on Adwords?
The Local Search Pros G+ Community has been just on fire with tons of great conversations. I need to figure out a way to start cross sharing more, without killing my carpal, so I can keep everyone in the loop.
But here's a really important discussion I wanted to bring up here because it's something that I'm sure it is on many consultant's minds due to all the recent Google Local changes.
Here is the convo so far. Please weigh in with your thoughts, below.
Joy Hawkins
We have an equal # of small businesses buying AdWords services from us as Local SEO. I would strongly agree that you should start learning more about AdWords so you can manage accounts for clients. I would start by doing their certification exams.
Bill Verboom
I agree with Joy. We find it effective, especially with new clients. It gives those not on page 1 an instant win. Those businesses with the money to play in AdWords, Home Services & Organic will have a huge advantage, especially in smaller cities. Imagine a top 3 placement in all those areas and the perceived and real value to a client! Not to mention a barnacle or two. Exciting stuff!
On a side note; I'm hoping these Home Service Ads will help curtail some of the exact match business names & place more emphasis on branding.
I still believe local SEO will have a place in the future, just not sure what role will be. Fun times!
Rob Hermann
Yes, I agree with all said here. I have always used a mix of Adwords with my local, and organic seo. The learning curve is steep, but not terribly long, especially if you take +Joy Hawkins advice and get certified.
Rich Owings
I've looked at certification before, and would love to do it. As a one person shop, I'm not sure where I'll find the time. Might have to though!
Linda Buquet
But here is the BIG Q I have for +Joy Hawkins and others. How profitable a service is Adwords management. No one needs to give away exact fees, but could you give a percentage? If you consider an "average" local SEO client as 100%, then what % of income would an "average" Adwords client be?
I guess that's hard to answer because it would depend on their budget. But if you talk about average middle of the road client, is there any way you can give us an idea?
My impression has always been, there is not much $ in managing Adwords, but many companies do it so it must be profitable. I guess in part it's profitable because not as much of a time drain as Local SEO?
Joy Hawkins
+Linda Buquet I will happily share our fees We charge a min of $199/month to manage an account and once the spend per month is more than $2,000 we up our fee to be 10% of the ad spend. This is low for the industry. Lots of agencies charge $500 min/month. I have some clients who are paying $14k a month in AdWords so their fee to us is $1400. Obviously those are the types of accounts we'd like all the time but we still do really well with the guys that only pay us $199/month. AdWords can run really well if you spend a few hours a month on it. If you just set it and forget it, it will rot and perform terribly.
So that's the convo up until now. I'll let everyone there know we have a discussion going here as well.
But important note to add to Rich's original comment... it's not just the "Home Service Ads" but the new "Nearby Businesses" local-pack-like ads that continue to keep growing into more verticals as well.
Thanks Joy for answering so transparently and sharing your insights with us!
Of course the other benefit to becoming Adwords certified is then you can say you are a "Google Partner". (Of course all the scammers that aren't really a Partner, say they are, so I'm not sure how much weight "Google Partner" carries these days.)
What about the rest of you? Are you doing Adwords now? If not, why not?
And are all these changes making you consider offering Adwords Management?
The Local Search Pros G+ Community has been just on fire with tons of great conversations. I need to figure out a way to start cross sharing more, without killing my carpal, so I can keep everyone in the loop.
But here's a really important discussion I wanted to bring up here because it's something that I'm sure it is on many consultant's minds due to all the recent Google Local changes.
Rich Owings said: Pay to play, AdWords and specialization...
A one person shop can't know and do every aspect of SEO these days. I avoid AdWords, and refer clients elsewhere when they need assistance with it. But with pay to play (home service ads) seeming inevitable, am I going to need to start doing more with AdWords? An existential question for a Monday morning!
Here is the convo so far. Please weigh in with your thoughts, below.
Joy Hawkins
We have an equal # of small businesses buying AdWords services from us as Local SEO. I would strongly agree that you should start learning more about AdWords so you can manage accounts for clients. I would start by doing their certification exams.
Bill Verboom
I agree with Joy. We find it effective, especially with new clients. It gives those not on page 1 an instant win. Those businesses with the money to play in AdWords, Home Services & Organic will have a huge advantage, especially in smaller cities. Imagine a top 3 placement in all those areas and the perceived and real value to a client! Not to mention a barnacle or two. Exciting stuff!
On a side note; I'm hoping these Home Service Ads will help curtail some of the exact match business names & place more emphasis on branding.
I still believe local SEO will have a place in the future, just not sure what role will be. Fun times!
Rob Hermann
Yes, I agree with all said here. I have always used a mix of Adwords with my local, and organic seo. The learning curve is steep, but not terribly long, especially if you take +Joy Hawkins advice and get certified.
Rich Owings
I've looked at certification before, and would love to do it. As a one person shop, I'm not sure where I'll find the time. Might have to though!
Linda Buquet
But here is the BIG Q I have for +Joy Hawkins and others. How profitable a service is Adwords management. No one needs to give away exact fees, but could you give a percentage? If you consider an "average" local SEO client as 100%, then what % of income would an "average" Adwords client be?
I guess that's hard to answer because it would depend on their budget. But if you talk about average middle of the road client, is there any way you can give us an idea?
My impression has always been, there is not much $ in managing Adwords, but many companies do it so it must be profitable. I guess in part it's profitable because not as much of a time drain as Local SEO?
Joy Hawkins
+Linda Buquet I will happily share our fees We charge a min of $199/month to manage an account and once the spend per month is more than $2,000 we up our fee to be 10% of the ad spend. This is low for the industry. Lots of agencies charge $500 min/month. I have some clients who are paying $14k a month in AdWords so their fee to us is $1400. Obviously those are the types of accounts we'd like all the time but we still do really well with the guys that only pay us $199/month. AdWords can run really well if you spend a few hours a month on it. If you just set it and forget it, it will rot and perform terribly.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So that's the convo up until now. I'll let everyone there know we have a discussion going here as well.
But important note to add to Rich's original comment... it's not just the "Home Service Ads" but the new "Nearby Businesses" local-pack-like ads that continue to keep growing into more verticals as well.
Thanks Joy for answering so transparently and sharing your insights with us!
Of course the other benefit to becoming Adwords certified is then you can say you are a "Google Partner". (Of course all the scammers that aren't really a Partner, say they are, so I'm not sure how much weight "Google Partner" carries these days.)
What about the rest of you? Are you doing Adwords now? If not, why not?
And are all these changes making you consider offering Adwords Management?