SEARCHWURX LLC
CHATTANOOGA, TN

In 2007 we created a website for our furniture stores, Macy’s Furniture & Mattress Clearance Center by Highland Park Furniture, and started advertising our site on Google AdWords because, well, all the “cool kids” were doing it. We had no intention of selling furniture online. We just felt we needed a presence because all our competitors seemed to be online even though most of them weren’t selling online either, just providing information. At the time, Wayfair was still CSN Stores and Amazon was a famous bookseller. Our online traffic was instantly respectable considering our tiny budget, but we continued to spend ludicrous amounts of money on newspaper inserts along with just-about every other type of advertising mentioned above. Until, that is, the newspaper reps, almost in unison, came calling with a price increases. After getting walloped by the print media price increases, we mined our data to be sure print was effective at the new, higher prices. The data had always been there, but we had never looked at it, assuming the advertising that was effective in the past was still effective because our stores were busy. As a result of that research, we discovered the only advertising that produced a positive ROI consistently were billboards, Google AdWords pay-per-click and Google organic search. Most of our TV campaigns and newspaper inserts weren’t even generating enough profit to pay for themselves. So we doubled-down on AdWords and spent months creating, testing, tweaking, testing again, and relentlessly tracking results which paid-off with a 4x return on advertising spend. And better yet, it was provable and could be duplicated which means we didn’t have to guess if our dollars were being spent effectively. Using the tools in Google Analytics and Google AdWords we could see exactly how many prospects were clicking into our website and what they were looking at once there. And by asking each customer how they heard about our stores, and tracking that metric religiously, we could see precisely how many dollars of sales were being generated. There isn’t any other means of advertising that only costs you money at the specific moment the customer is expressing a genuine interest in the product you’re selling except AdWords. Google AdWords simply works! Thus, SearchWurx was born. We’re here to help; With 20 years of retail furniture experience in Tampa, Florida, Joe Walter brings both a deep understanding of the demands placed on the independent furniture retailer and a successful track record of promoting stores to the top position on the first page of Google search. He’s a “furniture guy” who wants to help other independent “furniture people” succeed. Joe’s vast Google AdWords experience started around 2002 when he owned two Murphy Bed store franchises and began selling the Murphy Bed mechanisms on eBay. (Murphy bed: a bed that is hinged at one end to store vertically against the wall, or inside a closet or cabinet.) After quickly achieving some success on eBay and becoming weary of the high eBay fees, Joe started his own website to sell the Murphy Beds and began promoting his website on Google AdWords, which itself was only a few years old at the time (the official birthday of AdWords is October 23, 2000). Back then, placement in the results was very bid-influenced. There was no talk about Quality Scores, Google Analytics didn’t exist, Remarketing wasn’t a thing, and the first iPhone was still 5 years from being introduced (June 29, 2007). Achieving top placement on Google search was all about simply outbidding your competitors. Through the years, Google added features and fine-tuned their algorithms with Joe learning the ropes along the way; studying what was effective, monitoring results, adjusting budgets, testing new features, attending seminars, asking Google for advice, and through trial-and-error with an unfortunate emphasis on error. Watching keyword campaign results go from the top of the first page one day to the side of the fourth page the next due to Google algorithm changes was particularly disheartening. (Google no longer shows ads on the side of the page as a move toward a more mobile-friendly experience.) With time, Joe’s campaigns started to produce results, great results. Sales and website traffic were up and costs were down. Joe was selling more Murphy Beds online than in his stores. It was then, in late 2007, that Joe sold his stores and was hired by Macy’s Furniture & Mattress Clearance Center by Highland Park Furniture to create an online presence for them. A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well. In 2007 we created a website for our furniture stores, Macy’s Furniture & Mattress Clearance Center by Highland Park Furniture, and started advertising our site on Google AdWords because, well, all the “cool kids” were doing it. We had no intention of selling furniture online. We just felt we needed a presence because all our competitors seemed to be online even though most of them weren’t selling online either, just providing information. At the time, Wayfair was still CSN Stores and Amazon was a famous bookseller. Our online traffic was instantly respectable considering our tiny budget, but we continued to spend ludicrous amounts of money on newspaper inserts along with just-about every other type of advertising mentioned above. Until, that is, the newspaper reps, almost in unison, came calling with a price increases. After getting walloped by the print media price increases, we mined our data to be sure print was effective at the new, higher prices. The data had always been there, but we had never looked at it, assuming the advertising that was effective in the past was still effective because our stores were busy. As a result of that research, we discovered the only advertising that produced a positive ROI consistently were billboards, Google AdWords pay-per-click and Google organic search. Most of our TV campaigns and newspaper inserts weren’t even generating enough profit to pay for themselves. So we doubled-down on AdWords and spent months creating, testing, tweaking, testing again, and relentlessly tracking results which paid-off with a 4x return on advertising spend. And better yet, it was provable and could be duplicated which means we didn’t have to guess if our dollars were being spent effectively. Using the tools in Google Analytics and Google AdWords we could see exactly how many prospects were clicking into our website and what they were looking at once there. And by asking each customer how they heard about our stores, and tracking that metric religiously, we could see precisely how many dollars of sales were being generated. There isn’t any other means of advertising that only costs you money at the specific moment the customer is expressing a genuine interest in the product you’re selling except AdWords. Google AdWords simply works!