When I got this website, it came with about $100 worth of advertising credit. Now, I don’t really have any real need to advertise my website, as it is mostly for friends, coworkers, and others to learn a little more about me. But since the advertising credits expire, I might as well use them and see how they work; so that if I ever need to provide this kind of service and the future I can at least have a little firsthand experience in internet advertising.
Google AdWords is an interesting service. The basic idea is to bid for space on Google’s home page and other web sites which manage their advertising through Google. I can see out it could become very pricey to use Google AdWords if the keywords you select are in common usage. I have found that using less commonly searched terms will allow for more focused advertisements at a lower cost. Using this method I have simplified when the advertisement for my website will appear in Google search results so that it will only appear when searching for Dale Williams or just Dale. I could have included other terms such as Wittenberg or Ohio State but that would add to the costs significantly. My main goals through this advertisement are to get more page views to my website and easily allow people to Google my name and locate information about me.
The other advertising service that I got credit for was Facebook’s advertising service. This service seems to be a little less expensive and also got twice as much advertising credit. I could see this being very useful for a school or employer looking for particular undergrads or recent college graduates. I set up this account with a bid for 5¢ per 1000 page impressions in specific networks in which I’m associated with. The result of this effort will be that a large majority of people I’m in contact with we’ll see my website and have an opportunity to look further.
I don’t see much practical use of this knowledge in the public accounting field however I have always been interested in learning about different aspects of the operation of the business and this new form of advertising and may prove to be useful in some form which I can’t identify yet. I don’t see myself earning much in the area of gainful employment over the summer, so if anyone reading this would be interested in putting together an advertising package for a product or service, I would be happy to help –just send me a message.
- Dale