Google Adwords. Anyone familiar with how it all works?

[Shuvi McTupya]

Having just recently started up on my own, I am looking for ways to advertise and obviously Google is an option but I would like some advice.

I have been messing about with the software and if I am making sense of it, it is telling me I should be 'bidding'?? About £5 for each click through to my website!!

That seems very steep to me, so I have a few questions.

If I bid less than that, does my webpage just come up lower down the rankings, and is that suggested bid price enough to get me top ranking?

If my competion were to click on my website all day long they could cost put me out of business just with Google charges, is there some protection against that kind of activity?

[Shuvi McTupya]

Thanks for that..

It does all seem quite complex!

The service I offer is localised to the Aberdeen area, not particularly high value sales, I just supply and fit blinds..

I don't understand why the value of my sales should have any bearing on what Google charges me though, and if that is the case I would rather give them a small commission on successful leads than money for every unsuccessful one..not sure how that would work though.

I think I should find myself a local internet guru to sort out my website and advertising..

[Shuvi McTupya]

I think I can easily figure out what people will be typing into google when looking for blinds in aberdeen

And at this point,this thread will probably come up!!

I think I need some proper advice on the rest of it though, and I need to do some serious work on the webpage, right now it is just a temporary page with my company name and contact info, but it will never be a proper on line sales site.

[Shuvi McTupya]

Hoofy said:

Certainly, "Blinds Aberdeen" would probably cost you a lot less. What other phrases could you also bid on that are relevant? Perhaps split it by town/district? I don't know your area but I could search for "Blinds London" or "Blinds Kingston". What about the design eg "full length blinds Aberdeen"? What else might people search for when shopping for blinds?

Re your website, do you make customised blinds? If so, then make sure it has all the info people would need to entice them to contact you eg photos of previous work. Try to make it look half decent (you don't need to spend thousands on a well-designed site these days - a nice but simple WordPress site will still give you a design that doesn't look like it was knocked up by your 15 year old nephew for £10).

Believe it or not, it was the search phrase 'blinds in Aberdeen' that came back with the suggested bid price of a fiver, well, £4.70 or something.

I would probably lists all the local towns and the various types of blinds (vertical,Roman,roller etc) but does it get even more expensive if you ask for more search terms to be included?

As for me making them myself, no I don't. I am using other people to make the blinds , I go and measure up and show the customer some samples, then I order the blinds and go back and fit them about two weeks later, or less depending on the type of blinds and how fast I an get them!

As far as using Wordpress and the like, I just don't have the patience to figure it out and think about designs etc. I will have to pay someone to do that kind of thing as I get too frustrated when Things don't make immediate sense to me. (And I used to run a technical support help desk back In the early 90's..)
Don't know how I ever did that!