Directories v Adwords

Thursday, 10 September 2009 15:16 Last Updated on Thursday, 11 February 2010 15:09 Written by Dave Dorward

A client recently asked me to give him my thoughts on Applegate v Google Adwords.

Firstly, I have no allegiance to either - they both serve a purpose; both have pros and both have cons.

Applegate is a traditional directory listing provider (just like Yell.com) with the exception that they specialise in technology & manufacturing - Yell.com has a much broader spectrum of businesses and services as you’d expect. As you know a customer signs up for a free or paid account and then waits until a prospect visits the directory and types in their search criteria. Applegate then categorises the search results and invites the visitor to narrow their search down by selecting from a list of categories. They then produce an alphabetical list of the results with the paid accounts in bold at the top of the list which the visitor again has to select from.

This seems like a clumsy way of producing the search to me because it’s adding a further decision and click in for the visitor. My experience tells me that web users want to make as few decisions as possible and want “the computer” to do all of the hard work for them - that’s why we invented them in the first place isn’t it?

· The pros of a directory site are that there are fewer advertisers in their database and therefore logic says that they should be easier to find. Another pro is that if you choose to pay for the service as an advertiser, its a fixed annual cost which makes budgeting easier to manage.

· The cons are that they rely totally on the visitor/prospect firstly going on to the directory site before they then start their search. If they don’t find Applegate, how will a prospect find you? There is no way of measuring the success of an annual subscription - as far as I can see there are no reporting facilities to show you how many people read your listing and how many clicked through to your site.

So what about Adwords?

Google Adwords is a method of you (the customer) telling Google which keywords you want people to use to find your website. Google then puts a price on those words and phrases based upon on how many other people want to use them - also known as keyword bidding. The more popular the keyword, the more expensive it is to use as your account will be debited every time a visitor clicks on your advert and enters your site. The key to Adwords success is not only getting the keywords right for your products/services, but also making them specific to your products/services.

For instance, if you manufacture widgets you may be competing against 1000’s of other websites who all manufacture, sell, import, export widgets so you’re going to struggle to get on top of the Google rankings if you only ever bid on the word “widget”. Therefore, you need to expand your keywords to make you stand out from the crowd. So perhaps you’d want to use keywords such as “2009 model yellow widgets”, “next day UK delivery on green widgets”, “red widgets to fit an acme broom handle”. Note, a keyword is determined as a string of words between two commas by Google so you are not restricted to single words. So, by expanding the description in the keyword you are (a) making the search results more specific to your products; and (b) reducing your Adwords costs as there will be less people bidding on them as they aren’t mainstream.

· The pros of Adwords is that you have a much wider audience to advertise to and you’re advertising on the biggest billboard in the world - Google. You also get access to some great analysis and some superb tools to make your keyword selection and website content more focussed on your products/services.

· The cons are that unless you manage your keywords closely and dedicate someone to monitor the account on a daily basis, your budget can disappear very quickly. I should say that there is a facility within Adwords which allows you to set daily, weekly or monthly caps on your spending so you can manage your budget. However, if your daily budget is £25 and one of your keywords is costing your £5 per click, you’ve only got 5 chances of turning a prospect into a customer before your budget is used up and your site won’t feature again until the next day!

So that’s my thoughts for what they are worth. I manage Adwords campaigns for 3 clients at the moment and would be happy to meet with you to have a specific conversation on what you want to achieve if that’s the route your decide to go down. Drop me a line now and we can arrange a meeting or conference call to discuss.

I’ll finish with one last thought ...

If 90+% of all web searches go through Google; who are Google going to show at the top of their search results - a Google subscriber or an Applegate subscriber?