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It's Friday again and another week passed.
You hear about how my Google AdWords experiment is going at the moment and what put my peace and patience to the test.
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Second evaluation of my Google AdWords campaigns
Already two months passed since I last evaluated my Google AdWords campaigns.
I made some changes one week after the last analysis which are described in Update #11.
After that I let my Google AdWords account do its job and I did not care much about it.
By the end of June a bill arrived which I hadn't expected to be that high. This brought me to remove some expensive keywords. Although they performed well in terms of impressions and clicks, the users coming from them almost immediately left my website again.
Because of these removals there was a drop in traffic but the values for number of visited pages or average time on site went up.
I compared the two time ranges from the start of the experiment to the first evaluation (14.04. - 26.05.) with that from the first to the second evaluation (27.05. - 21.07.) and was able to say:
- the click-through-rate went up about 1.1%
- average cost per click went down 22 centime
- the positioning of the ads improved
- I achieved some first conversions (goals on the website)
This is really gratifying and the achieved values seem to be ok. The average click-through-rate in the technology business is about 2.38%.
Still, I'm not quite sure if I should continue with using Google AdWords. The cost can be quite high.
For now, I have set a budget of 16.- CHF per day, which is still justifiable.
Next thing I wanted to know was how many visitors do find my website via the so called organic search, that is just a normal Google search.
The number of clicks is quite low but the values of the bounce rate, number of visited pages as well as average time on site are better than the ones from the paid ads.
My next steps will be to further optimize my website. With some changes I can achieve higher impressions and clicks for the organic search results. With that the content will also be more aligned with my existing ads.
My goals, therefore, are to reduce the bounce rate, increase the average time spent on my site and get more conversions (download of my profile or case studies, getting in contact with me).
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Summer break
I had not much business to do in July. One bigger project was completed by the end of June and after that I hadn't any new work yet. But some days in I did land a job out of the blue – last week I could design the logo for the business of a friend.
Besides that I spent my time finding new clients, doing some work for GOA Switzerland and finishing the preparations for a wedding where I am the groomsman.
There will be no newsletter the next two weeks as I am in summer holiday. Therefore, the next update will be sent on Friday, August 11.
July was and still is like a summer break for me. Until this point I could pay myself the same wage each month but for the month of July I decided to not pay it yet. There probably are some more things I need to buy and I do not now for sure what I will be able to earn in the months to come. I'm still waiting for feedback from some potential clients and I hope I will have some paid work again in August.
It's part of the freelance life to have these uncertainties even if it's not always easy to accept them. This is my opportunity to learn to stay calm, have patience and be confident :)
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Thanks for reading.
Enjoy the summer time!
And now off to the weekend!
Beni
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