Do you buy adwords to promote your sites?

#1

Know nothing about buying adwords but have been thinking that maybe that's what I need to do. Just interested in results anyone else has had?

#2

We did it for a while but you must use multiple word combinations. Single words like antiques are useless. Even vintage linens might not be specific enough. Very specific target key words work best like laser gun sight or cobalt glass vase. It took up a lot of time making the ads so we gave up.

#3

We used AdWords for about a year until we started showing up where we wanted in organic searches. Haven't used them since nor did we use them at all for our second site.

#4

I used Yahoo early this year. I spent about $300, and made a profit of about $40.00. Actual money was more, but ratio was about the same.

#5

frontporchdreaming,

I do not use adwords either. As for getting traffic to your store, I right clicked on your bisi store and viewed the source. Your meta tag information is not filled in, like store name, store description, and keywords. Getting this filled in and then submitting the url to google, msn and yahoo may help them find your store. Check with bisi and see If they can tell you how to fill in this information. It is part of what search engine spiders use to index your site.

Terry

#6

Thanks for adding the Google tip. I didn't know to do it at first.

Here is the add url links to Google and MSN searches.

http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl

http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx

For yahoo - Browse through yahoo directories and when you find appropriate directory click on the link "Suggest a Site" (at the right top of the page)
http://dir.yahoo.com/

#7

Thank you everyone for all the great info. Thank you tfw for the heads up on the meta tags omission at bisi. Now the strange part. The only site of mine that shows up fairly well in google is my bisi listings?? I have submitted all my stores to the searches (google,msn,dmoz,& several others).

I do have a google base account for my bisi listings. That site submits listings automatically when you list which is really great. I have another google base account for my blujay listings but as I must enter them one by one from blujay, I must admit I don't have that many done (working on it).

I have to look at submitting to yahoo. Always seemed so complicated LOL

You've all sort of confirmed what I suspected that adwords can be a costly adventure if you have multiple unique items. Probably works better for someone selling 1000 of the same widget?

#8

With many unique items, I didn't find adwords cost effective.

#9

Yes, I'm scratching adwords off my list. I'm lucky if I have 2 or 3 of the same anything, ever LOL I'd go broke!