I think I am paying too much ($1.75 - $3.00) in CPC. How can I find out if I'm being Google slapped or not?
What are your keyword quality scores? Some keywords are naturally expensive. To be "slapped" is to be asked to pay prices for keywords which are way above what you would be asked to pay if you had Great quality scores.
Quality score shows OK for most and POOR for some. SpyFu and Google's own Keyword traffic estimator tool shows a CPC range of $0.50 - $3.5 . Further, it's not even a high value product. It's a contractor service.
what is a great quality score? I have a QS of 7/10 for some keywords I use and still see a 5 to 10 dollar first page est. While other similar keywords will be in the 1 to 2 dollar range. These are home based business keywords which are competative, but 10 bucks??
Aam7, if you want to reduce your cost per click (CPC), you need to work on improving your quality scores. Your best move would be to delete your campaign and rebuild it from scratch - but only after learning all you can about the proficient use of AdWords. I recommend that you pay a visit to the AdWords Help Center and the AdWords Learning Center. Read up on quality score, campaign structure, optimisation and management. Also, do a search on DP and on Google for quality score tips. You'll find loads of resources.
You need to work on your quality score, too. See my above post. In order to see the quality scores of your keywords, click on an ad group, click on "Customise columns", then choose "Show quality score" from the dropdown menu. You only need to do this in one ad group and it'll cascade throughout the campaign.