Recently been looking in to the two as options for my website, but can't help thinking they would put some users off as we already have one banner for adverts. Am I being a bit picky and should I do it regardless? Also which in peoples experiences works best? Many Thanks

They are 2 different things - one brings you money (and may drive away potential custromers) and one costs you money (but should drive potential customers to you).

What are you trying to achieve?

We are trying to establish a member base, so when you put it like that I guess it is clear!

what do you want the members to do?

Click on ads? Give you money? What ? (& why?)

No not at all, no members pay a penny toward anything. Just from looking on big sites it appears to be the norm, and I was told it bumped you up on google the more ads you had clicked on. It isnt a financial incentive

still not sure what you are trying to achieve.

Tell us the workflow you want to achieve and we can then maybe help?

Neither Adwords and Adsense have any beairng on your position in the search engines.

We are trying to become a place where North Sheffielders will go to when they want to find a local event, group, discount or share a local issue. We have been live 7 weeks now and realise that we need to be the first place to get local news or events on the site and we are talking to people at the moment who can give us those first hand articles.

So you need to raise your profile locally and get yourselves known locally.

So adsense is pretty useless in my case?

hmmm - local news can sometimes be a bit of "man hits thumb with hammer" type of news so its tricky to make it interesting.

How do people (who you want to look at your site) currently consume local news?

there's about 6 odd local papers, I know what you mean local news is never big news or it would be on the radio or some bigger medium. We have considered changing focus to a discounts on shops and place to chat with locals, what do you think?

Saw a thing the other day where the Brixton pound had been launched. All local shops & services got together and just issued a local currency to encourage people to shop local.

Google around BBC news to get the gist a bit more

So adsense is pretty useless in my case?

Yes, Adsense will allow you to display advertisements on your site and earn revenue from each click.

Adwords are a way to attract more customers to a site by paying Google each time someone clicks on the advert (put any search into Google and they appear on the right hand side).

So, if you are offering a free service then it might be expensive to use Adwords.

As you are offering a free service, your best bet would be trying to focus on the natural search listings. To do this, work on SEO, spread the word and add a link to as many sites as possible.

Adsense is of no use, and Adwords would be quite a lot of expenditure for no gain.

PS. I like the design of your site!

Hi Paul, many thanks for your feedback, that is the advice I was after and that makes sense! Yes the design is just about right now, has taken a few attempts but hopefully we have managed it, my friend/business partner has written it from scratch, he could make a fair few bob if he set up his own web design!

What is SEO? :S

SEO anybody?

Read my web pages on how to optimise your website (http://www.indizine.co.uk/how-to-optimise-your-website) and search engine optimisation (http://www.indizine.co.uk/search-engine-optimisation) for an in depth explanation in simple terms.

If you want to attract local web traffic (especially with you being a 100% online facility) then you need to optimise your website.

Is it a Joomla site?

Yes it is a Joomla, does that alter what method I have to use?

Not a Joomla expert myself but I imagine there are SEO plugins you can use much like Wordpress. But that doesn't alter how you optimise your website both on and off page.

I read the page on your website, so in a nutshell you can boost us up google through research and plugins for the £100? it sounds good but will need to know ins and outs, cheers

sorry, my error I gave the wrong link, I have updated it now. It explains how to do it yourself (or your business partner can do this) via Joomla. Do the keyword research then edit the meta tags via Joomla Admin with your chosen keywords as described in my web page above.

I've done this for a client with a Joomla site and it's dead simple once you are reasonably familiar with finding your way around the Admin.

one more thing what access do you require to the back end?

was that question for me? If so, I didnt understand what you meant.

Sorry i hadn't seen that you had posted just before i said that! Do you mean you have put the information about joomla on your web optimisation page? I was meaning if you were to work with plug ins for joomla would you need access to the back end of the website?

The info on my web page is about SEO regardless of what web software you use.

To add meta tags to a Joomla site you go into Admin and find the appropriate area to add the tags to.

Ref plugins, im not knowledgeable about these, I just imagined that there would be an SEO plugin to aid SEO, much like wordpress has.

Oh right I see, many thanks indizine for your help

Great advice here, going from Adwords and Adsense on a website to SEO and it's benefits. I've been looking into this area, as well, and learned alot just from this post alone. Thanks

Yeah was very useful indeed! What type of website do you run?

one more thing what access do you require to the back end?

Careful:suspect:

haha was a bit forward i suppose, not even a first date ...

Determining how much you should pay for your advertising is difficult so some whizz has come up with a very useful tool.

http://www.payperclickcalc.com/pay-per-click-calculator-pound.html

Indizine - what is your opinion / experience of copywriting firms offering services to websites? I don't know anything really about them but what they offer seems good value.

How do people (who you want to look at your site) currently consume local news?

they probably come here

Be carefull, there's a lot of fraud with adwords. Competitors click on your ads so that your balance depreciates quicker.

http://www.sheffield.gov.uk/sys_upl/templates/PT_Directory/PT_Directory_details.asp?esLtr=ALL&ItemId=101765&action=Display&pgid=131107&tid=154&DirectoryKeywords=&OrderDir=DESC&OrderFld=


Google to show businesses how to succeed online

Local businesses can learn how to succeed online at a free seminar in Sheffield this month.

The ‘Speed Up during the Slowdown’ seminar will be held on Monday 12 October at 5pm in the Electric Works on Sheffield’s Digital Campus...

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Might be worth going to that and asking Google directly.

ccbben - thanks for that info just registered for the event :)

Warwick sent me this link to book for the event so see you there.

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