So, I've never played with adwords in my life, other than using the Keyword Tool to determine search volume of specific keywords for SEO stuff. I kinda want to get into adwords to speed up something that I'm doing, but frankly I'm scared to death of it. I understand most of how it works, but I found a keyword that seemed completely odd, almost as if it was a glitch in the system. The Stats: Est. CPC: $0.05 Advertisement Competition: About 1/2 Search Volume for December: N/A Global Search Volume: 201,000 By looking at the results of many pages, the Est. CPC seems to be directly related to the Search Volume for December, since all the ones which appear as Search Volume for December: N/A seem to have a CPC: $0.05, and only costs more when there is a number in place of N/A. So what would make "Search Volume for December" fall completely off the charts? Is this just some glitch in Google? Also, what are the other variables that go into calculating average CPC, and how accurate is it compared to what you actually end up paying?
It all depends on the keyword, are you able to share those with us? The N/A for December could just mean that there wasn't enough people searching for your particular keywords to report.
"Salvia Trip" I know it isn't a keyword worth buying (won't lead to sales), just want to know the reason for the anomaly in case I do encounter something similar with a profitable keyword. EDIT: Shouldn't be any less popular in December than in the rest of year... EDIT: Google Trends http://www.google.com/trends?q=salvia+trip Code (markup):
The N/A looks like it's showing because of the low search volume, and it looks like there is only one other person running a PPC campaign right now. I wouldn't worry about your CPC going to far about .05
Thanks for your help here... But what really baffles me is compare Google Trends to the Stats in the keyword tool. I'll admit trends shows a steady decline throughout 2009, but there isn't much of a difference between January and December. EDIT: There is no "spike" in the graph that would have resulted in a Global Search Volume (average over 12 months) to become such a high volume.
Comparing search volumes from the keyword tool with actual numbers from Adwords campaigns are accurate for phrase and exact matches. Note that actual volumes you will get in Adwords will depend on whether or not your ads are eligible for 100% servings. You may not get 100% if your budget is lower than what would be needed, if you decide to show your ads only during certain times of day or if your quality score doesn't put you on the first page where there are 8 to 11 ads. As for cost estimates, they are just that - estimates. They are based on an average QS and what it would take to outrank the top positions. If you create great ads that will get QS of 10, you will beat those estimates, usually about half but this depends on what competitors are bidding and their own QS. If you get an average QS of 7, that is what you will have to pay and more to get the top positions because the top advertisers probably have QS of 10. CPC is not related to volumes. It is advertisers setting the prices. Of course, there may not be many advertisers bidding on the lower volumes which could lower the estimate. That does not mean that's what you'll pay. I explain QS and what you pay in details in Adwords FAQ. The search volume column by the way is the local volume. Maybe you just have it set at a city and why it shows NA.
It actually seems to be set to my country & language, not my city. But what your saying is that Global & Local aren't talking about the same people. Makes sense because Local always seems to be less than Global. So what I gather is for that particular keyword, there are some other countries that search that phrase a lot, but my country isn't one of them? Makes sense to me, thank you.
You can pick where you want your ads to display. I'm pretty sure adwords defaults to your home country though.
> Is advertiser competition local or global? First of all, it's not advertiser competition. It's number of searches for your keyword. The first column is Local number of searches. You can change that, at least you can if you have an Adwords account. The other column is Global searches. Don't use broad match type. It doesn't give accurate results and often shows "not enough data" for some reason. You may also find weird numbers like a Local search higher than Global. Go with the Local numbers. > You can pick where you want your ads to display. True. > I'm pretty sure adwords defaults to your home country though. Not true. Defaults to the whole world. You have to set it to what you want/need. Doesn't have to be your own country. If you use the tool from within Adwords, which might be what you're talking about, it defaults to the campaign settings. I believe it's the last campaign you were in before using the tool because obviously, you could have different campaigns with different settings.