Where do you sign up? Google Adwords!
I was just checking the cost of Adwords for a client who serves a relatively lightly searched market area. Google says the cost for "market area real estate" is almost $10 per click - the good news is that you can only expect 2 - 3 clicks a day. Tha bad news is that you may be paying $10 per click to have your competitors click on your link.

Who is paying? 18 agents for this particular market area. Is it just me or is this just a bit silly?

Does anyone here use Adwords? What are your costs like in your market areas?

I've used adwords before, althought for a much lower CPC (Cost per Click) and the site had nothing to do with real estate.

Adwords is a bit tricky, not only do you have the problem of people clicking on links only to leave the page a few seconds later, you also have the problem of people malaciously clicking on your links.

It comes down to what you expect your conversion ratio to be. If you expect 2%, which is pretty reasonable, and you expect that out of the two people who click on your link and actually contact you about buying or selling a home, that you'll make $XXXX from that transaction, it obviously might be in your best interest to spend the money on the other 98 people who clicked your link but didn't contact you.

Adwords is a "pay-to-play" service. If you're in high end real estate, and you expect to make a reasonable amount of money from each transaction even a $10.00 CPC might be worth it.

What I think is insane is the thinking that for some reason someone searching Google for "market area real estate" is somehow a better prospect than someone who is search elsewhere for the same keywords. Why line up at Google for $10 per click when prospects can be had elsewhere for a fraction of the cost?

It just goes to show you how powerful the Google brand is right now I guess.

How did you discover that it would be $10 a click?

Seems hard to believe unless your using a general keyword like homes, agent, or foreclosures.

I discovered that the cost was $10.00 by going into my Adwords account that I maintain for a client and using the utility that they provide for getting estimates on cost and traffic. That is where the figures came from.

so im asuming to be #1 it would take $10? even then, have you done a google search to see who these people are who are offering so much?

No, no, no - that is not the way Adwords works. You do not bid on a particular position with Adwords. You pay Google's asking price for a particular keyword combination (and variations of it) which in this case is $10.00. Everyone pays the same - so in this case there are at least 18 Realtors paying $10.00 a click.

The ads that are clicked on the most rise to the top where they get more clicks - so how you write your ad is what is important in Adwords as it determines your eventual position. Once you reach your daily budget you are off the list till tomorrow.

hmm, ill pm you about it. I dont want to disclose my info on here. Ive used adwords for 6 months and never seen that, i also use the local setup too.

maybe you can educate me.

AdWords is a good tool and is getting results...

The strategy is to have an ad with a good percentage of clicks in order to show on the first page, regardless of how much are you paying per click.

My highest bid was .50 and the results were pretty much the same: rarely on the 1st position or on top of the page. If you are trying to narrow your market, you loose positions and you must increase your PPC. Now, I am using broad matches, were my ad shows on every page related with the keyword.

The beauty of the system: because of the volume I pay now only 0.05 for any keywords, and my ad is always on the first page for my main search (and even related searches). I am sure that most of advertisers are paying way more than me for same exposure. Yesterday I had 15 clicks for a cost of 0.75 from one keyword.

Based on my 2 years experience with AdWords, I can say that when you will have a good clickthrough rate (CTR) you can pay the minimum amount and still can have a good position.

I guess there are some tricks to using Adwords that I am not aware of - I generally concentrate on "organic" positioning and don't as a rule use Adwords. ( I just pay what they tell me I should pay since my client wants to be #1)

I do have just the one client who uses it (vacation rental business - not real estate) and I "manage" it for him. He pays about $600 a week - a few bucks a click - and is happy with the results although I don't think there is any way of telling whether his Adwords are actually producing any business or if his business is coming from the organic listings.

At a nickle a click you don't have too much to lose so it looks like you are on to a good thing George!

see im #1 on a very large city name, just the name! and my ave ppc is still only .11!!

Paying for untargeted leads is just something that goes against my grain. I got that way by "grinding my teeth" when I would see other SEO's and web page providers guarantee top positions by using broad untargeted search terms - and then having the agents contact me wondering why they were not getting any business even though they have "great" search engine positions!

The keywords that are giving the "great positions" are important if one wants real results. Traffic is useless unless it turns into dollars and my experience in the past has always been that the broad keywords do not turn into dollars the way targeted terms do.

So, sorry to say I don't get excited about ranking well for a city name - now "city real estate", that excites me

oh dont get me wrong, the city name was just another campaign experiment with like $5 a day. $5 for an extra 100+ visitors. And still targeted to a point since they must have like what the ad said to click on it. Its worked out better than i thought.

My other campaigns are VERY targeted, but still fairly low.

Here is an interesting article about programs like AdWords

Search engine users are naive - Most can\'t even tell the difference between a link and an ad

An interesting bit from the article...

38% of users are able to distinguish between paid advertising results and search engine results;

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