Tech’s Guide to Pay-Per-Click Advertising with Rachel Logan

09/02/2015

Rachel: Yeah. I do want to ask for most people who are writing their own AdWords, it can be incredibly complicated and frustrating and you really need to seriously consider whether or not you want to outsource it. I personally I’m not one for spending money I don’t need to be spend, but it depends on how busy you are because it can take up a lot of your time.

If you don’t watch it carefully, it can get away from you and it can end up being a sinkhole for your company. You have to be very careful with it. It’s not something that you can just set and then walk away from. You need to be updating it. If you don’t have time to do that, then find someone who can or maybe just leave it alone until you have some time.

Bryce: I guess you can end up spending as much money and as much time on AdWords as you would have actually eventually gained, so you’ve got two hours of work, but you also spent two hours getting those keywords and sorting it all out.

Rachel: Right, and again I don’t recommend that you go with any professional company and the reason why is because you are the only one who knows your customers. So many people will pay so much money to have someone … To have a big company manager PPC for them and that company no matter how much you tell them your business model and how much you tell them what you do, they will never understand your customer base the way that you do.

I really do believe that the individual business owner will be way more successful running their own PPC campaign than they will hire digging out, but that said, if you don’t have very much time or you are overloaded with work and your time is money, an hour spent with a customer actually making money is going to be better than the hour trying to figure out your PPC. You need to figure out how much time and effort you can actually put into it and know that it does take time and it does take consistent time.

There was no point in time where you ever get to a point even when you have positive ROI where you can say, “Great, now I don’t need to think about that anymore.” Because it will change on you. A new business will come into your market and mess up all the numbers, so you have to constantly be watching it.
Bryce: I think that’s a mindset problem that a lot of new techs have is they do very much want to do all of it as much as they can, but they do miss the fact that they could be spending that time actually repairing computers. Some of these guys spend so much time on a single thing, whether it was PPC or working on their website or something that thee effective income per hour becomes less than say if you’re working at McDonald’s for example.
I guess as you mentioned, they got to make the decision whether it’s worth paying a professional who may not understand your market as well especially if they’re handling a lot of clients outside the computer repair industry. As you mentioned, they know what their clients are saying, so they can do pretty good keywords.

Rachel: Or find a freelancer, a local freelancer, even maybe not local. Someone who has more time to really understand your business and can help you out with it and probably won’t cost as much as the big companies.

Bryce: To rehash on what we’ve talked about, one thing people really got to watch out is watch the keywords or necessarily target such a short one like computer repair Los Angeles because probably everyone in Los Angeles will be targeting that keyword especially people who have more money than you or I do. Targets more long tail keyword, my search doesn’t look like what it’s supposed to or my computer is making a strange noise or something like that.

Point them to ad group of different ads, hopefully more than two. That way, we can test and refine and I guess check your keywords. See what’s working, what’s not. Make sure you actually track that and track the page that is after the point you want them to do, so if you want them to fill out your form actual, you’re tracking the page after your form because it actually shows a press submit. Is that correct?

Rachel: Yeah that’s correct and the only thing I would add to that is that as a computer repair technician or for anybody in that industry, Google and Bing are both very critical of our industry especially when it comes to internet marketing. There’s just so much flood out there and so they’re very particular about what is on your landing pages.

For example they don’t like having any downloads on the landing page unless it’s been specified a number of ways and you can get more information from Google’s documentation on that. You need to be very careful, because if you don’t follow their rules, they’ll warn you and if you don’t follow them again, they’ll shut you down and never let you come back.

They take it very seriously and so you need to make sure that you are following all of their rules to the tee.
Bryce: I’m not sure whether it was Google AdWords or Bing, but I seem to remember they didn’t like Remote Support people, is that correct?

Rachel: Yeah, that’s what happened to my company. We had a fantastically successful remote support and we helped so many people. Honestly, there was a lot goodwill in that. It was really fun getting to help people who there was no way they were going to be able to leave their home, but their computer wasn’t working and because they couldn’t leave their home, their computer was their lifeline.

It it’s not working, they were miserable and we were able to remote into them and fix their problems and get their back to … These poor 80 year old women, who just want to play solitaire, but their compute is not working, we get to help and it was a lot of fun. There’s a lot of fun, but they’re also very prone to people taking advantage of that. Unfortunately there were so many people, so many companies using Remote Support to take advantage of people that Google and Bing just shut it all down completely.

Bryce: If I were strictly a remote support person now, what would be my way around that or what would be a better alternative?

Rachel: Honestly, I don’t know what to tell you. You probably are not going to be able to do it through PPC. If you had some onsite or something that you could advertise and then have the Remote Support be one of the services that you offer, then that’s different, but if you’re strictly trying to advertise remote support they really, really don’t like that.

Bryce: Maybe just trying to get the coal in your ad copy and then say, “Uh, I see that you’re 200 miles away from me. What we can offer is Remote Support.” Something more like that?

Rachel: Exactly and ultimately your customers are going to feel more comfortable about that anyway, because if you try to pitch them with Remote Support right off the bat, there’s been too many news reports. They’re wary of that, but if you sell yourself as a technician first and then use Remote Support as your tool, then you’re golden.

Bryce: I guess that also gets around the having a download on your landing page, because I guess a lot of Remote Support places would have a download on the landing page to get the process started, but by doing this way, then you can direct a client to it I guess, through a private link or something.

Rachel: Yeah, and you can have a download on your landing page. It just needs to be specified, this is something you’re downloading. It can’t be a trick. It can’t be called something else and then they click on it and it’s downloading some software. You can have it. It just has to be specified like before and after, this is a download. This is exactly what is going to do and you also need to have the ability or at least a disclaimer on there saying how they can remove the software once they’ve downloaded.

Bryce: It’s also important to add something saying that unless this is open, we can’t actually … We can’t spy on your computer or continue watching you ongoing. I noticed when I did remote support, a lot of people were a little bit leery. Are you going to be able to watch me ongoing and are you going to be able on spy me? I’d always make sure I said, this is only functional when you’ve got it open. When it’s closed I cannot watch what you’re doing.

Rachel: Yeah and they definitely need to know that. A lot of the most support systems you have, I know with Instant HouseCall, you’ve got the little system tray icon. If that’s not there, then I’m not connected to you. I’m not even close to being connected to you and that gives them that peace of mind of knowing when I click disconnect, that little guy in my system tray goes away and I know I’m not being watched any more.

Bryce: It’s all about peace of mind with customers. As you mentioned they’re a bit leery nowadays. Microsoft scammers. I know Instant HouseCall does help settle people with the system tray and other things as well.

Rachel: I know with the loss of our business, it was really frustrating and we went through a lot of headaches. Google dropped us first and we switched all the way to Bing. We were able to run for a few months on Bing before Bing made the same protocol and dropped us just because we were in the industry. I remember feeling just really sad, like who’s going to help these people? How are we going to help these people?

Then I started think, for every one person I help, there were probably 5 to 10 people that were being hurt because Google and Bing we’re allowing those things to get through. I had to come to that realization that you know what, it totally stinks, but they are trying to protect their consumers and provide a reliable searching experience for them.

Bryce: I understand. They’ve totally got to look after themselves. Actually, on that topic, something I’d recommend to a lot of techs is, make sure you’re building up your own contact list. Any customers you do get, make sure you have their details. Whether that’s a phone or email, or a mailing address and the reason why is because, as you mentioned before, Rachel, you can basically live or die by Google.

It sounds like that your remote support business got hit pretty hard when they decided they don’t want to do what you’re doing. By having it, making sure you’re having all your clients’ contact details, I don’t want to use the word earn, but you have that contact and you can send new stuff to them and new offers and that sort of thing and it makes you a little bit less vulnerable to what Google decides and when they decide to slap you or not.

Rachel: Yeah, you need to make sure you’re building your business in such a way that you don’t rely on PPC and exactly, building a database. You can find a dozen open source CRMs that can help you drop a web form on to your website, so you can collect people’s names, phone numbers and email addresses without you really even having to do anything, but yeah, it’s very important to make sure that you are building your business and PPC is a tool. You don’t run it on PPC, because they won’t let you do that anymore.

Bryce: Same thing applies to SEO as well. They are changing that algorithm all the time. I know plenty of people who got Google slapped and they’re having a lovely stream of clients come in, then suddenly nothing, because they don’t rank on Google search anymore.

Rachel: Yeah, exactly, and that’s one of the reasons why I’ve never branched out into SEO, because it changes so much. I feel like the amount of time and effort I have to put into that to stay on top of it, there’s just not enough return.

Bryce: It changes so much, although having said that, I do recommend everyone do basic SEO based on the normal rules, the normal, have a good title, mention your keyword, but beyond that I personally even on Technibble, don’t focus too much on SEO. I try to write good content and good content usually gets found quite well and linked to and then that builds links. A lot of technicians with their own blogs, if they’ve got good content that’s shareable, that is good as SEO.

I think when those things are on Facebook and your clients are passing it around, that’s a lot better than just trying to pay someone in India to get you 2,000 links to one article and hope that will rank you better because Google will see that as unnatural and then slap you down for it.

Rachel: Yeah, exactly. There’s nothing that having good contact and having a reliable website, having a blog, if you can include a blog on your website, even if you don’t much time, once a week sit down, write something useful to your customers. Have something that you can send out to them in an email, something that builds a community around your business. When they feel part of your business and what you’re doing, they are going to stick with you. They won’t be likely to find another tech. They’ll like you.

Bryce: A lot of the Technibblers, they’re startups and the problem with SEO is it does take a long time. It can take three months to six months before you even start ranking very high, but in the meantime, I recommend that they do PPC, they do get familiar with it. Listen to this podcast, listen to you and it just seems to be the quickest way to start making some money.

Rachel: Yeah, it definitely is and even if you’re not, even if your ROI isn’t positive, you need to figure out what exactly you’re going for, because in some industries or in some areas, getting your name out there for a certain amount of time is really what you need. You may not have a ton of customers come in on you, but maybe if you’re just getting started, what you really need is for people to know that you’re there.

You’re going to have to spend a little bit of money on that. You might not have a completely positive ROI for a little while, but it’ll be worth it because people know you’re there and then you build from there.

Bryce: Back to a mindset problem is a lot of guys they just won’t spend money starting up. It’s like, I’m new, I don’t have money, so I’m not going to spend money on advertising, but they don’t see that’s a bit of a chicken and egg problem, that you actually need to spend the money first to start getting the people and then once you have the people, you can spend more money doing PPC or pay-per-advertising and all that, but then I got to realize that they do need to spend some money upfront to start getting the clients, otherwise it’s just chicken and egg.

Rachel: Right. The longer you drag your feet, the longer you are going to struggle and the longer it will be before you have the money to do the advertising that you think you need money for. You get stuck in this rut and a lot of techs don’t get out of it and they end up changing careers.

Bryce: Yeah, they go back to the 9 to 5 because it’s easier. Going freelance is tough and when someone else handled the advertising of the business that you’re working for, it’s nice and easy and especially when you can stick to just being a tech and working with computers, but when you do go out on your own, you do got to start handling this and you’ve got to have the mindset for numbers that looking at your ROI and seeing that if I spend this much and I make this much, then ROI is this much. Got to have a head for the figures I guess.

Rachel: It can be frustrating for a new technician who really like doing his job and then finds out that he’s just signed up to be a business person and he never really wanted to be a business person, an accountant and a marketer all rolled up into one, but now that’s what he’s got to do. It can be a little bit eye opening.

Bryce: Once they do start making the money though, they can definitely start outsourcing that stuff or if you do have a little bit of money saved, then I would recommend that people outsource a lot of this stuff initially. If you’re not the best person at building a web page, then get someone who is. A lot of things with building a web page as well is, I’m trying to think of a good way to explain this.

It’s a little bit like the client’s 16 year old cousin who is good at computers. He may know how to format the computer, but you as a tech know that that’s only a small part of it. You’ve got to back it up and make sure all the drivers are installed and make sure everything is where it was, otherwise we’ll complain. There’s a lot more to say building a website than a lot of people think.

If you can spend just a little bit of money getting a professional to do it, then sometimes that’s worth it and because it’s not what you do. You don’t realize all the little bits and pieces that are required to get a website good, up and converting and doing a good job of what it’s supposed to do.

Rachel: Exactly, and even with PPC, if you miss one little aspect of it, it could make a huge difference to the effect it has on your business. Having someone else that can help you walk through it and even just get you started on it. I’m sure it’s possible to find some freelancers who are willing to help you get started for a fee, but you’ve got to be willing to put the initial effort and that usually is the money that you’ve got to put into it at the very beginning to get it going.

Bryce: I guess it’s not only what your mindset is like. If you Google the numbers to your PPC itself and you quite enjoy refining it and honing in on those perfect keywords, but if that’s not you. You just want to play with computers. You want to fix clients’ machines and figure out problems, then maybe it’s worth outsourcing. I guess it comes down to what you like.

Rachel: That’s what successful people do, right? They play to their strengths. You don’t waste your time on things you’re not good at.

Bryce: That’s actually right. In fact some of the most successful people I’ve ever known will outsource as much as they can. I actually knew somebody who was … There was something wrong with him and I’m not 100% sure what it was. I suspect it was either severe dyslexia or mild autism, I’m not 100% sure, but he outsourced everything. He had a handful of secretaries and he was actually very, very successful because he knew what he was good at, but he wasn’t a good at a lot of things.

I don’t think he even knew his own phone number, but he just didn’t have the mind for it, but he was very good at what he did. He made a lot of money doing what he did, and he got other people to handle everything else. If you are a rock star computer technician, but you haven’t got the mind for the ROI numbers, then give it to someone else perhaps.

Rachel: Right.

Bryce: I think you’ve answered all my questions. You answered a lot more than my questions, so thank you much for all that.

Rachel: Yeah, no problem.

Bryce: That’s Rachel from Instant HouseCall. Again, thank you much for coming on the show. I really appreciate everything that you’ve shared with both me and the computer technicians. Personally, I learned quite a lot here as well. Thank you.

Rachel: Sure. Any time.

Bryce: Thank you, Rachel.