Todays topic is one I've been desperate to cover since starting the Photo Biz Xposed podcast for a few reasons. It's potentially a fantastic way to get traffic and bookings, it's expensive to get wrong and I know it will give you an edge over your competition – no matter the genre of photography you're working in.
The difficulty was finding the right person to interview and I struck it lucky when Daryl agreed to come on the show. Daryl's knowledge on Adwords is 2nd to none and in this interview covers everything you need to get your own Adwords campaign started.
Here's some of what we cover:
The areas surrounded by red are the Google Adword Ads – paid ads that show up as a result of the search term: portrait photographer Sydney
Premium Members
Premium members are in for a real treat this episode as Daryl explains exactly how to find the right keywords for your business, which free tools you'll need and how to use them. Then, as we were getting ready to close the segment, Daryl reveals a software tool that you can use to monitor the best performing keywords your competitors are using for their Adwords campaigns, to gauge how much they are paying and how you can adjust what you're doing to move above them in Google.
What is your big takeaway?
Following the interview, I'd love to know what your biggest takeaway is – what is the one thing that you'd like to implement or remember from what Daryl had to share? Let me and other listeners know by leaving your thoughts in the comments below.
Also, unless you are seriously considering using Daryl to manage your account, it's best to post any follow up questions below where Daryl can answer them in one place rather than have him bombarded with emails with potentially the same questions.
What have you implemented so far?
If you have implemented something that you've learnt or heard from the podcast interviews, I want to know about it! I really am interested and love to hear about your success stories, especially if I've helped play a small part. If you feel up to it, leave a voicemail message by clicking the tab on this page or record and send me an .mp3 file – I'd love to play your recording on a future episode. Don't feel confident or want to send a voicemail? No problem, shoot me an email, I'd love to hear from you – andrew@photobizx.com.
iTunes ratings, reviews and Shout-Outs
A great iTunes review this week from Chris Pyke – thanks mate and I agree that everyone I've interviewed so far has been so generous and the success of the show really is down to the guests and their willingness to share.
It's awesome to read that the podcast has made a difference to your business! Thanks for letting me know and thanks for the great review, it means a lot.
It's these reviews that really make a big difference to the podcast being ranked well and found in the iTunes store. If you have the time and are happy to leave an honest rating and review, head over to iTunes. Don't feel your comments have to be long, involved or gushy, an honest opinion is all I ask.
Also, a few shout-outs to photographers/listeners that have made contact via email or social media this week:
Anders Kjøndal – http://www.luxe.no
Heath Wade – http://www.heathwade.com
Bronwyn Liebke – http://www.petclix.com.au
Kim Hamblin – http://www.kimhamblinphotography.com
Russell Hyde – www.russellhydephotography.com.au
James Lloyd – http://www.jameslloyd.co.uk
Thanks guys, it's been great chatting and hearing from every single one of you this week. If you'd like to get in touch, ask a question or make a suggestion for the show, you can email me andrew@photobizx.com, find me on twitter https://twitter.com/andrewhellmich or on Facebook at https://photobizx.com/facebook – I'd love to hear from you!
Questions And Answers
Each week I get a number of questions from listeners that I do my best to answer. Would you like to see these questions and answers as basic blog posts on this website? If you think it could be a help to you, let me know. If I get some interest, I'll give it a try.
A screenshot of the Google Keyword Planner showing some of the suggested keywords around the seed keyword phrase: Central Coast Wedding Photographer
Links to people, places and things mentioned in this episode:
Daryl Mander – http://darylmander.com
Daryl on Skype – DarylMander
Daryl on Twitter – https://twitter.com/darylmander
Daryl via email – darylmander@gmail.com
Google Adwords – http://google.com/adwords
Google Keyword Planner – https://adwords.google.com/ko/KeywordPlanner/Home
The Conversions Podcast – http://www.conversionspodcast.com
That's it for me this week, hope everything is going well for you. I'd love for you to leave a comment below to let me know what you took away from this episode of the podcast.
Speak soon
Andrew
Brilliant – this was the one to listen to, I have just reconfigured my ad-words account and already have seen a difference in a few hours of search results, changed the listing wording, some keywords and bobs ya bloody uncle mate. ripper
Glad you liked it Paul and it’s great to hear that it’s had an immediate impact on your Adwords account.
Brilliant podcast, as Paul says, one to listen to!
I think I am going to use this to start to target the most popular venues in my area/ wedding dress shops to see if I can get some results from this. I’m going to write some blog posts on the venues etc and then promote that page. I hope that will keep the cost down and show google relevancy.
Thanks again 🙂
Hey Shane, if you’re going to pay for Adwords to promote a page, make sure that page is set up to make a conversion. For example, you could have a contact form on the page and or your phone number, with a nice big ‘call to action’ to encourage visitors to take the next step.
I have seen some good results from driving paid traffic to blog posts before, but it tends to work only when there’s a contact form or some other form of conversion on the page.
The best results though, come from creating a custom landing page specifically for Adwords traffic. You can see some great examples of paid traffic landing pages here:
http://unbounce.com/landing-page-examples/built-using-unbounce/beautiful-landing-page-design-examples/
Hey Daryl – thanks for adding your comments and help here, much appreciated.
The Unbounce landing pages is a great link with some fantastic designs.
Thank you Daryl!
I will make sure I do that and thank you for the link!
As you may remember I said that one of my next big pushes for my business was to get into Ad Words.
Nice one, thanks for recording this one Andrew!!
I’m about 15 minutes into the actual conversation with Daryl and so far it’s clear, it’s coherent and it’s everything I’ve been waiting for in terms of an easy way to absorb Google Adwords advice and information.
Will post another comment with my biggest takeaway when I get to the end
Very glad to hear it was coherent Michael. I was worried that I might have used to much jargon but it sounds like it’s been understood. Looking forward to hearing your takeaways!
No problem Michael – hope you get plenty out of the interview – Daryl shared a ton so I’m sure you will.
Daryl did a great job putting everything in Layman’s terms.
I definitely will NOT be doing and “Broad Type” keywords from now on.
And those Google vouchers can be found at http://www.hostmonster.com when you get your domain through them.
Joey Joiner
Fort Worth, TX
Thanks for the link Joey and happy to hear you’ve learned something useful. Avoiding broad match shall save you money in the long run, it’s fine to use Broad if you have a big budget and want to do some testing. But for small budgets you’re much better off with lots of exact match KWs.
Thanks for the shout out Andrew! And thanks for all of the great info Daryl. Once my website is at a point that I’m happy with it, I’ll be re-listening to this so I can try it out.
Good stuff Chris, hope this helps you out when you get to that point where you’re ready to launch your Adwords campaign.
No worries Chris – glad you enjoyed this episode.
This was an excellent podcast. I have now started to create ads and once my landing page is finished, I will launch. I never thought adwords worked because I never click on them. Thanks for changing my perspective on that!
Thanks Devin – I was the same as you and thought “who would click on the ads” but like Darryl says, Google aren’t silly and they wouldn’t be making millions from the ads if they didn’t work.
Love to hear how you go when you give adwords a try.
I’m currently just properly setting up my adwords, working through it all properly before I launch. I think the main thing I was doing wrong was not creating a specific landing page and just directing people to my home page. I’ve now crafted a landing page with a short introduction and specific links to things people might want to know. Hopefully that helps me gain some traction
Hi Chris – I was making a similar mistake when starting out and now direct clicks to the landing page I want. Don’t forget you can still have your home page URL showing as the link; but when clicked, the viewer is taken to a page you determine.
Another big thing for measuring my success with adwords was creating a landing page with an optin box where visitors leave their email address and go into an auto responder cycle of emails. It seemed a waste to have them come to the site and not have any real way to generate interaction – except hope they contact me.
Great podcast Andrew. I have just started an AdWords campaign using a few very exact keywords to keep the costs down. I am really keen to see how it goes.
Thanks very much for asking plenty of direct follow up questions to clarify. For example, “let’s assume I am a new photographer starting out and I want to …”. These questions always produce great results. Keep up the great work Andrew.
Nick
Thanks Nick, really appreciate your comments and glad you enjoyed this interview. There’s definitely some money saving tips form Daryl in this episode. Love to hear how your Adwords campaign goes.
Great episode, a big takeaway for me is that having your website structured with a url that reflects keywords eg.
http://www.mywebsite/wedding_photography
such a simple thing, but powerful, tie that in with ensuring they are landing on an appropriate page and that there is a call to action, great stuff.
Daryl Mander, thank you!
Taking your takeaway a step further Tony – you’ll hear in the premium area following the interview with Jim Harmer from Improve Photography about the importance of domain names and redirects to your actual website URL.
Thanks for the tips they are great!
Glad to hear you found the interview helpful.