I just started my website and don't get much daily traffic. When someone clicks on my ads the CTR gets pretty high (over 10%). I have heard of accounts being suspended because of a high CTR. What is considered a safe CTR?
I've never heard of accounts been suspended because of high CTR's. Google rewards advertisers with high CTR's by allowing themto reduce there cost per click. Decent CTR is above 4%, from market to market it differs. Good conversion rate is about 2%.
Google tries to maximize the CPM they can get for a given impression. CPM = Cost / 1000 Impressions Obviously - for the advertisers it's a cost, but for Google it's the revenue. Therefore: CTR = Clicks/Impressions = CPM * 1000 / CPC Now Google looks at the 10 competing ads and sets them in the order which produces the maximal CPM for them, considering each competitor's bid (max. CPC). You may have 5% CTR for a certain keyword and still be paying higher CPC than your competitors on the same keyword. Therefore look at the Quality Score. If it's lower than 7 then act: Tighter ad groups, add negative keywords, better ads...
This might be a stupid question but could you explain a bit more on how the keywords are applied to the Adsense ads that are displayed on my site? I'm still new to this and all I did was add the code provided by Google Adsense. I'm not sure how to target specific keywords or how to make it display ads relevant to my site. I believe you can get higher earnings with better keywords but not sure on the process. Thanks!
No such thing as "stupid question". I'll be happy to assist, but I can't write down the whole theory in a single post. If you have a site with AdSense then the keywords which trigger the ads are running on Google's Display network. I hope you're not trying to do a Google arbitrage (i.e. be both an advertiser and a publisher on the same webpage)... However if you wish to advertise on Google's search network, then: Start from setting your campaign to run on Google Search network only (opt out Display and Search Partners). Then run a few very tight ad groups, with Exact and Phrase match types only [exact keyword example] "phrase keyword example" Set your conversion tracking code on the proper page, so that you'll be able to track results, at least partially. Go over a good AdWords tutorial before proceeding, perhaps this one: http://searchengineland.com/guide/what-is-paid-search
If you read through articles/books on Adwords, seems the common thought is any keyword below 1% should be dropped, or focused on more to improve -- else it turns into a negative for the entire Adwords account. If you're seeing 5-10% then that's outstanding!