I have been using adwords for about a year now, my cpc was about .08 until 2 months ago, I have always had a great ctr (20%). I only have 1 competitor and I realize that he could be bidding up to try to get into the blue but I think thats only half. I read where I should put at least 3 links on my landing page that are exact matches for my content, this was done in the same color font as the background so only google bots will find them and customers will not click off my site. My cpc is now .48 and rising daily. I think that I have to be #1 in the blue to get the conversions. If I am paying .048 my competitor has to be close behind right? Thanks
I personally haven't heard about the "3 exact match content links". However, why would you color-blend them to the background if they're exact matches for your content for your customers? Search engines don't like this kind of stuff and may penalize your site in organic rankings for it. There's no real reason for your CPC to be rising daily unless someone else is bidding against you, or unless you yourself are raising it. If it truly is rising daily, it sounds like your competition may be experimenting with their pricing. However, it doesn't make any sense that you have only 1 competitor but have to be in position #1 to get sales. I'd gladly let my bid ride my ad to position #2 in such a market. There's a lot of debate over which ad positions generate the best sales, but often times it takes a customer 5-7 returns to a page or site before they purchase, so being in position 4-7 or so really can be fairly advantageous.. Since you have great CTR & have had so for so long at 20 cents, I'd go back to that. Why ruin a good thing? I tremendously doubt that being second or even third place will ruin your conversions. At the very worse, you can always try it for a week or two and then move back to it if your suspicions are true. -T
I guess I stated it wrong, The 3 links are to the major distributor that I sell thier products online. I am a distributor and have thier online catalog. I have read somewhere in here that by putting the 3 links directly to the source makes the landing page more prevelant and blending the color with the background makes it visable only to the google computer. I am a licenced retailer for thier product but my landing page url is a long string that goes to the host of my online catalogs / cart. Thanks very much for the other info, I will try to relax a little and back my bids down. Chuck
Yes, the links will be visible to the google spider ... but they will be treated as hidden links that will adversely affect the quality score of your landing page as in the eyes of google quality score, hidden links are akin to spam sites and sites that offer poor customer experiences. In this instance, 3 hidden links = 3 potential spam links. Although hidden from a customers point of view, to the search engine spider it then lowers the quality of your page as it relates it as a possible spam page which creates a poor user experience. If you are including 3 links on the page, make them visible, useful and relevant for visitors NOT for googlebot.
Never hide a link by making it the same color as the background. Neither the adwords nor organic Google-bot like that.
Thanks to all for the help! I have made the changes advised and will update you as of the results in a week. Thanks Again! Panmann