long tail keywords

Everyone keeps saying "Long tail keywords" etc ... but how exactly can I make it profitable for a saturated niche? Allow me explain.

Let's say I start bidding on below list of long tail keyword

"interactive math tutor"
"7th grade math tutor"
"spanish grammar tutor"
"on line spanish tutor"

the problem is that in this niche most companies will bid up to as much as $5 on keyword "tutor", so every time someone searches for one of the above phrases I am being outbid by large companies because keyword "tutor" is in every phrase. The bottom line is that i bid .60 cents on long tail keywords which contain word "tutor" and they bid $5 on keyword "tutor". This results in my ads to show up on a 2nd page. What is the point of long tail keywords then?

Am I not optimizing my campaigns for long tail keywords correctly? Is it possible that my ads can show up in 3rd position or 4th or 5th when I bid low on the above long tail keywords without starting the bidding war?

 

how many keywords do you have in general - you seem like your on the right track, just need to keep moving on it..

 

what about trying:
tutors in <yourcity>
tutors in <yourstate>
math tutors in <yourcity>
math tutors in <yourstate>
etc
etc

 

I have about 700+ long tail keywords right now. What do you mean by just keep it moving? I bid .60 cents on long tail keywords which contain word "tutor" and they bid $5 on keyword "tutor" and this results in my ads to show up on 2nd page. How can I set up a campaign in such a way that ads will actually show up on a 1st page for long tail keywords with a low fee?

 

What type of keywords are you using?

 

while you are correct that a competitor using broad match on the main term in your keywords with a crazy high bid - will usually get high placement, you can still make a run at it using long tail keywords and lower bids.

i would recommended you doing a "keyword insert" (bit.ly/4WWCA) into the ad creative to help boost CTR and QS - that might help you get over the hump.

good luck

 

Work on your ads to achieve a better Quality Score than your competitors - you can almost guarantee that if you get a good QS of say 9 or 10 then with lower bids you'll be able to beat your competitors to the top spots...

 

I would follow Chris' advice and bid only on geographical keywords such as "math tutor in mycity". Less impressions but more relevancy plus I assume this is the sort of service only offered locally anyway. Those bidding on just "tutor" should be less relevant and their CTR is likely much worse than yours. Even if they bid $5 (which you don't know but let's assume) and their CTR 1%, you can beat them with a 5% CTR and bidding only $1. So I echo JHardy's opinion. I know he's right.