Loosing faith in Adwords

I'm as newb as a newb can be when it comes to advertising and just started with adwords.

I choose about 75 adwords that were doing well, I was getting a ton of views on the top most of the time. Choosing words that no one else was using. Although I was not getting a lot of clicks.

My site is a consulting business I started and there isn't but a very few others doing the same thing I am doing.

The problem is yesterday over 50 of the 75 adwords I choose were inactive in my price range. Please keep in mind, I am on a shoe string budget and can't keep increasing minimum bid.

It just seems like Google is increasing the minimum bid because my words are getting used.

Is there any truth to my though?

 

Not sure if that is correct or not, one would hope that you are incorrect - as they already make enough $$ off us.

 

You might want to design your keywords with more sales conversion. Find your niche since popular keywords have more bids on them. Get some help from experts or try the Free keywords tutorial first.

 

When I read you're first sentence, I cringed. As a self-proclaimed noob, you should not start out with Adwords. In fact, PPC should be one of the last types of promoting and advertising you do. It can have your wallet crying, "Uncle!" in no time unless you really know what you're doing and have some money to test with.

If you're set on doing it, I would recommend getting Perry Marshall's, "Definitive Guide To Google Adwords." Very good book to have and you'll learn a ton. I posted a recent article to my blog with some information on writing good ads. I hope it helps. http://small-biz-blog.net/2007/06/tips-to-writitng-best-google-adwords.html

 

If you can, what is a good way to start?

this is my site
clockworkcs.com

 

Write articles and submit them to directories
Submit your site to directories (Directory Submitter is a great product for that)
Write press releases about your business and submit them
Join social networking sites and make contacts
Use your email sig and forum sigs to your benefit
Make videos about various things and submit them to YouTube, LiveVideo and others. How-to and DIY videos are popular

All free =]

 

Not sure that I agree that noobs shouldn't advertise on Adwords. You just need to understand how it works, and you can make money.

If your minimum bids are more than about £0.10, then you're probably doing something wrong.

The major factors that impact your minimum bid are

1) Your Landing Page - does Google like it, and does it relate to your keywords?

This is unlikely to be the problem, if your minimum bid was initially ok, but has been increasing over time.

2) Your clickthrough rate. If you're top of the PPC results, you need a very healthy clickthrough rate. If people see your advert and don't click on it, Google doesn't WANT your advert to appear, since it's clearly not relevant to searchers.

This is probably the problem - what's your clickthrough rate on these inactive keywords?

3) Your advert text. Does it include the keyword (ideally in the title)?



Try this page for more details about the minimum bid quality score, and the associated minimum bids: http://www.epiphanysolutions.co.uk/...words-quality-score/minimum-bid-quality-score

 

"You just need to understand how it works, and you can make money."

That's all I was saying. Thoroughly understanding exactly how it works and what you should and shouldn't do it key. It you do, you're no longer a noob to Adwords.

 

The click through rate was very low. I only had a few less than 10 for all of the words.

Wow, thanks for the advice.

Both of you!

 

There is this phenomenon known as the Google slap, one day you're riding high with your google campaigns and then boom you login to check your ads and a good deal of them are disabled and now they're (google) demanding 5 dollars are more to reactivate them.

It may be a simple case of google not liking your landing page.

Simon Leung has an ebook that shows you how to effectively build an effective landing page (He used to work for google specifically in their adwords optimiztion division) Try googling his name.

 

Is there a money back gurantee on making 1k in 24hrs?

 

I am in agreement with Berserker...

First off, PPC is a very time consuming and difficult game to play with even if you know what you are doing. When you are new to the internet jumping into PPC is not the way to go.

Many of us have done this with disatrous results, me inlcuded. One of my first campaigns I tried to compete with web-ex and lost my shirt at $2.00 a click woke up to 100.00 in charges and zero sales on a $1.00 item..lol

There are so many FREE ways to build traffic that it does not make sense to play in the adwords arena until you are making decent money.

 

Good thing is that I started with a $5.00 activation fee and choose a really low budget.

Then the host 1and1 had a $20.00 voucher too.

Have gotten some really good advice so far, good people here.

 

Some excellant tips in there! Changing al my google ads right now. Thanks.

 

If you have a low click through rate your position will drop and it will get more expensive. This will happen quite quickly.

 

Well, this just doesn't work for everybody, and this takes time to master. I lost faith in adwords too, so I turned to some other company and now i'm doing fine. Try to verse into some more diversity for your own sake ...

 

Absolutely. Google's just trying to show the searcher what they want - if people aren't clicking on your advert, Google doesn't want people to see it!

Here's some tips on writing compelling advert text: http://www.epiphanysolutions.co.uk/...advert-text/maximising-the-click-through-rate

Hope it helps...

 

Although a lot of 'private' resources are very good, I'd like to point out that Google themselves have an extensive learning centre for Adwords and anyone new to the game can do a lot worse than following the guidance there. Apart from anything else, you are (moderately) certain that what you're reading is accurate, not someone else's interpretation of the rules and possibly something out of date.

http://www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/

On the subject of being a newb, I can agree with elements of both Custard's and Oregon's opinions on using Adwords. Yes, it can be complex and it's very easy to waste money if you don't know what you're doing BUT it's not really rocket science and a bit of time and effort reading and researching the subject will pay dividends.

Jon

 

Excellent article!

 

Happens all the time. Maybe you will be satisfied with ad exposure on content network? I often lower bid on google search (my keywords go inactive), but on content network my ads working quite well.

If it is not good for you, create new site. Replace existing one. Do a little bit more of seo.

cheers