Google Adwords - Minimum Bid To Show Up on Page One

I really like Google Adwords as a source of high-quality traffic. It's not perfect, but then no source of traffic on the Internet is.

Think about it for a minute. A bride goes to Google, types in a search, a keyword search of three to four words (most likely), and then sees your ad.

If you bid high enough you show up at the top before the organic search engine results. If you're not a top three bid you probably show up on the narrow, right column.

She sees it (20% of the people who search at Google click on Sponsored Ads)

She likes it (it has the words in it that "connect" with her head in it's current state!)

She clicks on it (she's on her way to your website's home page or maybe a landing page).

The chances are at least 50-50 she's a good prospect for an inquiry. That is, if you're website converts well. If you have traffic but aren't getting inquiries you have a conversion problem.

Recently, I discovered a little weirdness with Google Adwords while bidding on keywords. Specifically, new keywords and their bids that would get me on the first page of Sponsored Listings.

Google Adwords, Keyword Bids, and the "Minimum Bid" to Show Up on the First Page

Google Explains Click Fraud

Here's a great video that talks about click fraud at Google Adwords. If you're concerned about click fraud on your campaign this video discusses what Google is doing about it.

Personally, I'm pretty comfortable Google is doing the right thing and keeping tabs on this. Adwords is their "golden goose" and I'm sure they want to carefully protect it.

http://videos.webpronews.com/2008/12/16/ses-chicago-google-explains-click-fraud/

PPC and Landing Page Quality Score

Too many people I speak to who are using Google Adwords don't know what a landing page is.

Even worse, they're not familiar with Page Quality Score, which will impact your bidding costs (poor quality score requires higher minimum bids, higher quality score has a positive impact: lower minimum bids and potentially more impressions and clicks - for less cost-per-click!).

For more information about Quality Score visit:
http://adwords.blogspot.com/2007/09/websites-that-may-merit-low-landing.html

For more information about Landing Pages visit:
https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=46675&hl=en


Chris Jaeger
Book More Weddings
http://www.bookmoreweddings.com

Get the ADVANTAGE for your website. More traffic, more brides, more inquiries, more sales.

Common PPC (Pay Per Click) Mistakes

When you make mistakes with using pay-per-click you can spend a lot of money fast and have little, or nothing, to show for it. Pay-per-click isn't rocket-science, but it is rather sophisticated if you want to use all the bells and whistles and get the best value for your dollar.

This full article is available to members of my ADVANTAGE program: Common Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising Mistakes.

Follow this link to learn more about my ADVANTAGE program and how it will help you beat your online competition, get better results from your website, and book more weddings.