Hands up in the air frustration!

Ok, I'm only on the starter edition of Google Adwords, but I'm extremely frustrated... For eight months, I let Google do everything (as per the Starter Editon), and it worked great - I had a bunch on keywords and was getting 2 to 3 hits a day - not huge but regular and consistent, with some who converted.

Then, about 3 weeks ago, I received an email from Google, recommending that I update some keywords etc. So I did - I used the keyword helper (provided by Google) to pick some appropriate keywords from the companies web site that I work for... For the first 2 days after that, the hits started to jump to about 4 or 5, then went silent - for 15 days! Since then, I have been getting low Q/S (1/10), low search volume, etc. I even wrote to Google and said, "please undo everything or anything I've done, and reset my account to the way it was before I started messing with it..." No response.

So here's the rub, the web site I'm promoting is pretty specific... an antique and appraising home study program... those are even the words I use in keyword searches... but I continue to get: "Rarely shown due to low quality score." I've tried every conceivable keyword from being direct to widespread with such words as "antiques", and still I get, "Rarely shown due to low quality score"... I'm not sure what to do here... I mean I'm trying to be as specific as possible, the landing page (www.asheford.com) has these terms on it... but no matter what I do, or what word or phrase I choose, I get the, "Rarely shown due to low quality score"

The irony is, when I signed up and chose a bunch of keywords in February of 09, it worked great until Google asked me to add keywords in Oct... I'd gladly go back to the way it was (reset my account to before I made any changes)... but apparently I cant...

If anyone can help me understand (I've read all of Google's so-called self-help explanations and that doesn't seem to change anything, I still get the, "Rarely shown due to low quality score" beside every single keyword I choose...)

I, like many, also raised my CPC, and as has been said on this site before, nothing happened...

If someone can maybe help me by looking at the web site or the keywords I'm using, or simply point me in the right direction (don't say Google's help menu... that's a bust - at least for me) I'd be very grateful...

Thanks,

M.

 

If you ask me... two words...

"I, like many, also raised my CPC, and as has been said on this site before, nothing happened..."

Google SLAP!

 

@ Mitchum, In general there is probably nothing wrong with your account, This is what you must do, when ever you see a low quality score and in the main part any score with a poor rating, for any of the 3 main quality options > keyword relevance. land page quality or land page speed , is delete these keywords straight away.

In general G may suggest some keywords as you describe but these are exactly that, generated suggestions as to what might best suit your site, so you will always get keywords that fall out of line when you add some new ones.

The best practice would be to wait a few minutes or so after updating or adding some keywords is to sort your keywords by the QS lowest to highest and keep an eye on your low ones and then delete them as they pop up and most happen in a short space of time if this is going to happen.

If you also have a bunch of keywords ranking well then your account will be fine just clear those red flags out and you can then improve from there.

@ raising your cpc if your are red flagged poor then yes 100% forget it, if a keyword is poor then it is poor no matter how much money you throw at it.

You will however on occasions note say at QS4 that your 3 guides are green good but your QS4 is showing red if this is the case then you can raise the cpc (only if you have those 3 greens) and the purpose of this is to show the ad or to get it to gain impressions, the indirect result of these impressions (if you have good ads) is it will raise your ctr which in turn will raise the QS of that key to a QS5 or above turning the QS indicator green.

Again if its red flagged poor delete it with out question regardless of if you think it should be there or not.

 

Thanks DownUnder...

I think the problem is.... no matter what keyword I choose, nothing appears to be relevant! Every single keyword goes to 1/10

I have a thread of posts from About.com's antique section on the web site... Is that an affiliate? I don't collect any money from it.... it's there purely to provide links to info on antiques (an RSS feed...? I think that's what it's called)

I mean when not one keyword works, and the site is offering something as common as instruction, distance learning and antiques, you'd think I'd have plenty of keywords... ???

So now I'm just wondering since I can't get ONE keyword to work... is there something on the site that's possibly offending Google... It worked great for 8 months on Google "auto-pilot", until Google asked me to add some new keywords...

Any advice?

Thanks again..

 

can you tell me if page quality went to poor ?

if not try these groups/keys you may need to delete some, worth a try

antique
antique dealers
antique rings
antique stores
antique jewelry
antique table
antique
antique shops
antique shop
antique furniture
antique hardware
antique dealer
chinese antique furniture
antique auctions
antique bedroom furniture
antique buyers
antique jewellery
antique pottery
antique clocks
antique coins
antique toys
antique appraisal courses

antiques
working with antiques
antiques dealers
antiques for sale
antiques roadshow
antiques
chinese antiques
french antiques
collectible antiques
antiques shops
antiques jewelry
rare antiques
antiques doors
antiques collectibles

 

Thanks again DownUnder...

Yes... I've tried 50 to 60 keywords, cut it down to 6, deleted them all, started again, paused the campaign trying to perhaps reset my account, keywords etc., in the end they all return to:

"Rarely shown due to low quality score"
Keyword: "antique dealer"
1/10
* Keyword relevance: No problems
* Landing page quality: Poor
* Landing page load time: No problems
------------------------------------------
"Rarely shown due to low quality score"
Keyword: "Distance Learning Program"
1/10

* Keyword relevance: No problems
* Landing page quality: Poor
* Landing page load time: No problems

----------------------------------------

Even when I copy and paste direct phrases from the landing page, like "antique home study course" I still get the same message.

I think my frustration lies in the fact that expressions such as the one above are directly correlated to what the school is offering, and, it's the lead title in our ad... so I can't understand why it would say" * Landing page quality: Poor

Here's the ad:
Antique Home Study Course]
Professional Diploma-level program.
Be a dealer & appraiser. Free Book!
www.asheford.com

The keywords you've listed (appreciated...) I've tried before from the keyword generator. They seem to work for an hour or two, then back to the same, "Rarely shown due to low quality score."

In fact, there is not ONE keyword that I can choose that doesn't end up with the, "Rarely shown due to low quality score" message...

I very much appreciate your responses and efforts to help me... Again, if you can think of anything I'm doing wrong, suggestions are more than welcome...

Thanks again....

 

What are you trying to achieve? Are you an affiliate? Is the site yours? If it is, why not just use organic content SEO. It's free. You need of course to take at least 6 months before seeing results. But by the look of it. You have been spending quite sometime on this. It wouldn't hurt to start now. 5-10 unique clicks a day from SE's is too easy.

 

Mitchum - have you changed you website at all during the time this has gone on?

You might need to redesign the site, since it is the landing page Google has an issue with for whatever reason.

 

@ OP

Do you have all the pages in place that are needed?

Have you SEO'd the site? While that sounds like a dumb question when discussing PPC a well SEO'd site will typically fare very well in PPC.

Title tags Meta Description seem to help improve QS

 

The reason to NOT USE organic search is conversion to sales is typically 1% or less. Given the keywords and niche they are likely to see 0.05% Conversion

PPC will typically drive 10% to 20% conversion to sales.

One thing many people miss online, is simple understanding of how to operate a business properly....

 

!!

10-20% PPC conversion rate to sales? Only if the keywords are actually your branded products.

Otherwise, no way. A very successful campaign on 'generic' keywords (e.g. pencils, horror dvds, whatever), will get 1% conversion clicks -> sales.

 

I hate to inform you but 10% to 20% is normal.

Remember most people are not marketers and have very little knowledge of how to properly execute an advertising campaign.

I have so many clients who are great at what they do, but stink at marketing. I tell them I am great at marketing, but cannot do what they do.

Webmasters to save money, will try to do their own marketing, and typically fail (case in point). The effect is they waste the money they could have spent hiring a professional and will often see a diminished ROI.

I use this as an example.

I own a 1988 Monte Carlo SS that I have invested over $17,000.00 in the past few years.

I had a transmission shop build a transmission to handle the horsepower and torque I wanted the car to handle.

I had the engine built by another person which cost over $4,000.00

I had another person stitch custom leather head rests and sun visors.

When it needs a tune up I take it to another professional.

I just drive the car......

Why?

Because I am not a professional at all of the other things that need to be done to ensure the car operates without fail....I recognize my limitations and hire someone who is very experience to do that which I cannot.

So while you may be seeing 1% conversion with PPC, that in no way shape or form means others are, or that your results are typical.



Just a tip - people who search for pencils, horror dvds, cars, hdtsv, etc etc are not in a buying state of mind. Those are typically "research" terms.

Someone who searches mechanical drafting pencils, saw 6 dvd on sale, 2010 Ford Mustang GT, 42" Sony Bravia LCD HDTV, etc are the consumers who are looking to buy.

Hope it helps

 

Your analogy proves that in some circumstances, professionals do a better job than laymen.

We are discussing what a typical conversion rate on Google is.

Do you see the problem?



Look, it's like I said in my post, which you implicitly agreed with without realising. For branded searches (like all the ones you mention), you might get close to the conversion rates you mention (though 20% would be exceptionally high).

When you are looking to move up into another gear though - and get massively more volume - you necessarily have to aim at worse-performing keywords (because you already target the good ones). So when you do start targetting 'pencils', whatever, 1% is often a good conversion rate. And if it's profitable, great, you are making much more money than before because there is so much more volume.

 

Hi Alex

A couple of the terms are branded yes, many are not such as, long blonde hair wigs, or mechanical drafting pencils.

You do portrait work somehow correct? Now if I were to try to do what you do I would fail miserably.

Discussing typical conversion rate is a good idea IF you are a professional at working with paid search marketing campaigns, but if you are a portrait editing professional or a webmaster selling loft beds, then it may not be a very accurate assessment.

Here are some examples of my work,

2006 (I have been at it a while and was not always so good at it lol)

http://www.sem-advance.com/ppc/camp1.jpg

October 13th 2009 - First day!

http://www.sem-advance.com/ppc/Oct132009.jpg

One of my own campaigns

http://www.sem-advance.com/ppc/july-24-2009.jpg

As we can clearly see 1% is not something I think is good. To me 1% is poor and I would fire myself.

In fact I have, and am going to fire myself from another clients campaign this afternoon, due to the fact that after a month of trying and testing, I cannot get it to perform as I want (landing page limitations come into play).

Where we often fail, is when we think about what "WE" want, and forget to think how our customers think, and take into account what "THEY" want.

Volume is great if if makes a healthy profit, but volume for volumes sake, is not an accurate business metric.

Sometimes less is more.......

 

You are dealing with clicks in the single digits, or well under 100.

I deal with them in the millions. See my attachment.

I don't think our cases are similar enough for us to compare results.

If you are running tiny campaigns, I agree your keywords can be so targetted as to allow large conversion rates. If you are running huge campaigns, you must accept less targetted traffic, although if you make money on each click (on average), the potential pay off is orders of magnitude higher.

 

I run small medium and large campaigns. I just do not have the permission from larger clients to show their results.

And that's not the point of this discussion.

Campaigns should be compact and focused on performing keywords for improved quality score.

Throwing something at the wall to see what sticks... is a waste of a budget.

What would you want?

1 million clicks at 1% conversion?

or

250,000 clicks at 10% conversion?

I will take the latter all day long, and twice on Tuesday.

 

Actually, I work for the Asheford Institute of Antiques - a distance learning program on antiques, collectibles and appraising - I'm not a web designer or anything like that... In fact, I have just enough info to probably be dangerous to myself when it comes to computers... So, no, I'm not an affiliate (not sure exactly what that is?)

The school has been in operation since 1966, and I suggested trying Google adwords, and was told to give it a try on a limited basis (wishing I'd kept my mouth shut now!)

So, as I mentioned in my earlier post, I simply set-up with Google's automatic starter edition of Adwords, and everything worked fine, for eight months or so, till Google emailed me saying I should try adding some new Keywords... as soon as I began messing about everything changed... by that I mean, went dead.

In answer to your questions; not an affiliate (as far as I know), haven't changed the web site (however the site did have a hacker try to knock it down, so we were given an new "A" Record address, but that's it). I believe all the pages are the same as they've always been (i.e. when it was working fine 8 months ago). Not to sound even more dumb that I already appear, I'm afraid I don't even know what SEO'ing the site is (?). What is "organic" search?

All I can say, is that I have tried broad search keywords as well as direct link keywords such as, Antique Home Study Course and nothing seems to work...

Is this a result of the Landing Page we have? It worked fine for 8 months, so what's changed?

Again, thanks for all the input and help...

 

Hi

An affiliate is a commission sales person basically.

SEO is where your site pages are coded with the keywords you want to use to attract your target market when a consumer types them into the Google search box for instance your sites listing would be returned in the organic (free) results from Google, this also requires a link building campaign..

If you search for Asheford Institute of Antiques you will see your site at # 1 # 2 and #3 (the second two are indented listings but still fantastic results for your domain)

One thing that I see you are missing is a privacy policy page and without one, Google will lower your quality score. (this is a newer issue and probably why you saw the drop off some months ago when the policy was instituted.)

Another issue is there seems to be some javascript code in the pages which make reference are linked to Weebly,,,, I cannot say this is having an adverse effect but it certainly could give Google cause for concern.

Without seeing the campaign other issues are too many keywords used in one adgroup. Poor ad copy. Ad copy does not incorporate keywords you are bidding on.

Low daily budget. To low of a bid for CPC. are also issues that come into play.

Landing page score could also be low but that would be hard to imagine seeing how well the site was built.

Hope it helps..

 

I want the largest profit.

Your hypothetical choice is false. I would want the 250 000 clicks at 10%, and then ON TOP OF THAT the extra 750 000 clicks at 1%, if they were profitable at that rate.

Adding more clicks does not make the higher conversion clicks less profitable, because they act on different keywords. In my campaign, the most focussed keywords all have 10/10 QS - they aren't affected by the presence of the 5 - 7/10 QS keywords.

Your campaign should maximise profit, simple as that. If you don't make a profit with 1% conversion rate keywords, perhaps because you are selling low value goods, or the clicks are very expensive, whatever, then don't run those keywords.


If for your campaigns in general, you pay so much per click, or sell such low value goods, that 1% is a poor conversion rate, fine. But you shouldn't make generalisations like '1% is a bad conversion rate, period.' Maximise profit - that's all it comes down to at the end of the day.

 

This is a very good point - if you have the exact words the user searched on in your ad, those words are put in bold by Google on the results page, making people much more likely to a) look at and b) click on your ad.