I’ve used Google Adwords to generate leads for my consulting business (CustomBytes) for 4 years. I’ve spent thousands with them. Here’s what I’ve found:
New Search! I just installed a new search feature to replace the Google search box. Google was taking forever to crawl the site — we have over 36,000 pages! – so most searches were returning nothing useful. The new search engine is entirely under our control, so we plan to have it re-index weekly (the re-index takes about 16 hours or so, so it’s not something that we’ll do more than weekly).
More Consultants! We have over 200 consultants now and are growing daily. As you would expect, most of the consultants are grouped around the major metropolitan markets, but we are also getting consultants in the smaller markets. If you know a freelance consultant and they aren’t listed here, click the “Refer a Friend” link at the bottom of any site page and we’ll drop them a note asking them to come take a look and create a consultant listing. Read more…
Last month, we posted an article on how to write a good consulting ad for an online directory. Now let’s flip it over and look at five ways to write a sucky ad:
1. Post your résumé. Jeezzzzz, people, this is an online directory, not Monster.com. Post your résumé on Monster (and on your web site); for an online directory, clients want a summary. Clients don’t want to know everywhere you’ve worked. And they don’t want to read your résumé cover letter. They want to know how you’re going to help them. Read more…
We added our 150th freelance consultant listing this morning.
We added 71 consultants last month. We have already added 61 consultants this month in the first 9 days. Our goal is 200. You can help. Just refer a friend using our Refer a Friend form. If you already have, thanks! The more consultants we have on FLT, the more useful the directory will be for clients to use, which means the more your listing will be seen by clients in your area. It’s a win for everyone, so please refer more consultant buddies to us. Read more…
When a business hires a freelancer, it’s usually because they don’t have the in-house expertise to accomplish the tasks that the freelancer will perform. For example, most small businesses have absolutely no idea how to create or manage a web site. They know they need one, but they have really no idea what it takes to get there. Will the client know a good development process to create the web site? Will they understand where and how to host a web site?
A freelance consultant can provide knowledge to the client, but a lot of times what the client wants is for the freelance consultant — you! – to take over the project and own it. Your job then is to not only manage the project, but manage the client. Read more…
I was reading another blogger’s fawning comments about eLance yesterday. So fawning that it had to be a paid-for article. Annoyingly fawning, you know what I’m saying? I posted a response, but he declined to permit it to be published (go figure!), (it took him a long time to accept the comments, but he finally did it), and I’m also including it here with some minor edits so that you get the context a bit better:
My perspective on job bidding sites is entirely different. If you’re having trouble finding clients, focus all your energy and spare time learning to market yourself!
Examples: are you priced incorrectly for your market? Does your website look cheap and unprofessional (or is it non-existent)? Do you clearly explain how you are different than other freelancers? Do you meet with clients in a suit or in jeans? The answers to all of these questions are part of your marketing message.
eLance, Guru, and the other project-bidding sites have nothing to do with finding clients. Read more…
I first started using Google Adwords to promote my consulting business back in September 2003. At that point, the choices were limited: keywords for search and for content. No site keywords, no separate bids for content keywords compared to search keywords unless you set up separate campaigns. I tried content search for about two months and racked up about $600 in unnecessary expenses and got nothing from it but a lot of clicks from people on a lot of strange sites.
So I turned off content ads. Kept the search ads. At that point, spent about $100-$120 per month. Added about 3 new customers per year through it, which was enough to keep me busier than I had been in years. All was (and still is) good.
As part of FreelanceLocalTech marketing, we have been really experimenting with all the different Adwords features and I’m definitely impressed with what Google has recently added to help make content ads more useful. Read more…
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